People attend an event to mark the return of cash to victims of foreign exchange fraud at a shopping mall in Chongqing on Nov 19, 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

According to the police, Ju, a female victim, joined an online chat group on QQ, a popular messaging platform, to learn about stock market information in 2015. Several months later, some people from the chat group invited her to join a video chat room they said could provide professional guidance on foreign exchange speculation.

As recommended by the so-called experts in the chat room, she gave a total of 1 million yuan to an investment company. After losing more than 600,000 yuan in a short time, she realized that she might have been scammed and reported the case to the police in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area.

After an investigation in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the police said they found that three companies in Nanjiang and Hangzhou had scammed the money through fake foreign exchange trading platforms online. All purchases and sales were fake transactions simulated by computer programs, they said.