13 Chinese ‘Tinder swindlers’ caught

MANILA, Philippines — Thirteen Chinese were arrested in Parañaque on April 13 over their alleged involvement in a scheme that uses mobile dating applications such as Tinder to swindle young professionals, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.

An NBI special task force raided the office of First Great Computer Technologies, arresting 13 employees and confiscating desktop computers.

An employee of the company tipped off the NBI that his coworkers were being trained to scam clients, who should be “employed and earning at least $3,000 or whose professions are automotive engineers, computer programmers or machine operators,” the agency said in its statement.

Armed with a script and using fake accounts created on mobile dating applications like Tinder and messaging platforms like WhatsApp, the employees would chat with potential victims, asking them to open accounts on cryptocurrency applications like Binance and Metamask.

The employees would later send links to phishing sites that could extract personal information and cash deposits from the victims.

The suspects face charges of violating Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.