China to Establish International Alliance Against Telecom and Online Fraud

Dragon Media News Desk

China is set to establish an international alliance to combat cross-border telecom and online fraud, with more than 40 countries having expressed willingness to participate.

China’s Ministry of Public Security announced at a press conference on Friday that the alliance would be formally established in September.

The founding ceremony will take place during the 2026 Conference of the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum in Lianyungang, a city in east China’s Jiangsu Province, the ministry said.

Jiang Guoli, head of the ministry’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, said the alliance would be an intergovernmental organisation involving broad participation from law enforcement agencies worldwide. Its principal objective will be to coordinate effective action against transnational telecom and online fraud.

He invited all countries to join the alliance and called for stronger intelligence and information sharing, more effective joint operations and greater coordination in preventive and control measures.

“Telecom and online fraud has become a global scourge and a major challenge for social governance,” Jiang said.

Chinese police have made combating such crimes a priority for the next five years. The ministry said the vast majority of telecom and online fraud operations targeting China are currently based outside the country.

China plans to intensify action against fraud centres, criminal networks and their key operators by using existing international law enforcement mechanisms and the alliance that is set to be established.

In recent years, China has expanded law enforcement cooperation with more than 30 countries, including Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Myanmar, to combat cross-border telecom and online fraud.

Joint operations conducted by China and Myanmar since 2023 have dismantled four notorious criminal gangs operating in Myanmar’s Kokang region, according to the ministry.

Earlier this year, police authorities from China, the United States and the United Arab Emirates conducted their first joint law enforcement operation, resulting in the arrest of 276 suspects.

Cooperation with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, among other countries, has also led to the arrest and repatriation of more than 20,000 telecom and online fraud suspects this year, Jiang said.