Selling idle phones, suddenly your bank card gets frozen! Police: The “buyer” is money laundering, using stolen money to buy second-hand items, “washing” the illicit funds into physical goods for resale and cashing out.

“I’m just selling an old unused phone—why did my bank card get frozen?”

The seller thought it was just a normal secondhand transaction on a used-goods platform, but he never realized that he had become a “money-laundering tool” for a scam syndicate.

On March 30, the Shangcheng Police in Hangzhou used AI video to reconstruct a real scheme and urged everyone to stay vigilant.

Recently, Xiaozhang in Hangzhou listed a foldable-screen phone on a certain secondhand platform for 15,900 yuan.

Not long after he posted it, a buyer contacted him.

The other party said the transaction amount was relatively large, and they didn’t want to pay extra fees charged by the platform, so they proposed an offline deal and asked for someone to come pick up the goods in person.

The young man felt the request was reasonable, so he agreed.

The transaction went fairly smoothly. After the phone was collected, the other party transferred 15,900 yuan to him in two installments: 15,000 yuan by direct bank transfer, and 900 yuan via Alipay transfer.

But before long, Xiaozhang found that his bank card had been frozen. He hurriedly contacted the bank.

The bank customer service told him, “Your bank card is suspected of receiving scam funds.”

Xiaozhang panicked and reported to the police.

After investigation, the police uncovered the “truth”: it turned out that the “buyer” was actually the money-laundering agent of a scam gang. He used the money obtained through fraud to buy secondhand items on the secondhand platform, then “laundered” the stolen money into physical goods, and finally resold them to turn them into cash.

And the money Xiaozhang received came from stolen funds transferred in from other victims’ accounts.

At present, the case is still under further investigation.

The Shangcheng Police remind that when trading online with strangers, all communication, payments, and shipment must be completed within the platform. Refuse any demands such as “offline cash,” “someone else paying on your behalf,” and the like. Also watch for abnormal behavior—things like not seeing the goods, not negotiating the price, pushing to close the deal, or asking you to provide someone else’s bank card are all dangerous signals. After the transaction is completed, you should keep the platform chat records, transaction evidence, courier tracking numbers, etc., for emergencies.

Source: Chao News, correspondent Meng Lingyun, reporter Yang Yunhan

【Source: Minnan Net】