Tianjin North Net News: I suddenly got a call saying that I won the first prize. Would you believe this? Some people not only believed, but also spent nearly 90000 yuan to buy the national intangible cultural heritage collections that can be appreciated and repurchased. Recently, Beichen Branch of the Public Security Bureau followed its lead and beat up a criminal gang specializing in swindling the elderly, involving tens of millions of yuan, involving 32 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country. Hundreds of elderly people were cheated.

One day in May 2020, Uncle Wei, who lives in Beichen District, received a phone call. The other party claimed to be a salesman of "Yuzhou Paper Cutting Cultural Center". The company was holding an anniversary celebration, and Uncle Wei won the first prize, In just one year, he successively bought more than 180 paper-cut collections 20 times, with a total cost of 89700 yuan. After the family knew the situation, they thought it was not reliable. Uncle Wei became suspicious. He called the salesman and hoped that the company would buy back his collection. However, the other party told him that the collection would rise sharply, so he waited.

Until October 2021, Uncle Wei contacted the salesman again, and the other party excused himself with the excuse that the company would conduct exhibition auction during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, and the staff of the epidemic control company could not come to buy back, and delayed indefinitely, making Uncle Wei realize that he might be cheated, so he turned to the police for help. The police asked experts to identify the collection of paper-cut paintings in Uncle Wei's home. They were all ordinary handicrafts and had no collection value. The so-called "collection certificates" and "identification certificates" were forged.

In order to prevent more elderly people from being cheated, the Beichen police set up a special case team. After thorough investigation, a telecommunications fraud gang led by Zhao and Zhang, who forged paper-cut paintings to defraud the elderly, emerged. After investigation, Zhao and Zhang bought raw materials to make cheap handicrafts or printed materials, counterfeited them into collectibles with investment value, forged identification certificates of national intangible cultural heritage, and then called themselves "Yuzhou paper-cut cultural center" staff, lured the elderly to buy paper-cut paintings for investment under the guise of low prices and high returns, and defrauded them of their pension money.

On July 6, 2022, Beichen police captured more than 30 suspect led by Zhao and Zhang in Yu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. According to Zhao, since 2016, she has used Yuxian paper-cut painting intangible cultural heritage as a platform to recruit and train telephone operators, provide scripts, etc., and successfully committed hundreds of fraud. At present, the suspect has been taken criminal coercive measures by the Beichen police, and the case is under further investigation. (Liu Ying, editor of Jinyun News)