---
title: "China's Top Ten Scam Industries Rake in 300 Billion Yuan Annually"
description: "China's scam industry spans all sectors, with an estimated annual illegal take exceeding 300 billion yuan. This article lists the top ten scam industries, from street scams to pyramid schemes, each with significant annual profits."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-09-28"
categories: "Supply Chain & B2B"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rU_NGEFze_PPt1RP6DLP0A"
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---

# China's Top Ten Scam Industries Rake in 300 Billion Yuan Annually

> China's scam industry spans all sectors, with an estimated annual illegal take exceeding 300 billion yuan. This article lists the top ten scam industries, from street scams to pyramid schemes, each with significant annual profits.

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> **Preface:**
>
> China's scam industry covers all 360 trades, with different scammers in every field. Conservative estimates put annual illegal gains at over 300 billion yuan. Everyone should stay sharp and discern carefully!
In China, the most profitable industry is actually the scam industry. From small-time scammers who claim to find a golden turtle on the roadside and cheat you out of a few thousand yuan, to big-time scammers who run gold speculation or online pyramid schemes and cheat you out of tens of millions, a wide variety of scammers illegally profit over 300 billion yuan from Chinese people each year.
> **Listing China's Top Ten Scam Industries**
> 01
>
> **Street Scams: 5 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
One day, you're walking down the street when a man or woman dressed as a farmer appears, asking for directions to the bank or post office. Then they mysteriously produce some gold ingots, gold Buddha statues, or old currency, claiming they dug them up at a construction site and they're worth a lot. They ask if you want to buy.
Street scam tactics keep evolving, including the old can-prize scams. Often, middle-aged and elderly people fall for these, losing anywhere from a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands. Thousands fall victim daily, with conservative estimates of 5 billion yuan siphoned annually.
> 02
>
> **Foreign Trade Scams: 10 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
The targets are mainly small enterprises across the country, eager to export their products. These scammers use grand company names like "International Company China Headquarters" or "Some International Group," with high-end offices (rented) and nice cars (also rented). They convince you they're a big corporation.
They treat you to lavish meals, and as long as you sign a contract—at least a $1 million order—you'll need to pay deposits and various fees to fulfill it. Once they've swindled you enough, the company closes up and disappears. Good luck finding them.
> 03
>
> **Officialdom Scams: 15 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
If you meet someone claiming to be a relative or confidant of a leader, saying they have connections from central leaders down to local police stations, and can guarantee promotions and wealth, handle government allocations, or get you promoted from deputy to full director—don't get excited. 99% of the time, they're scammers.
Each successful scam nets 500,000 to 3 million yuan. Some officialdom scammers operate in an area for years, even a decade, undetected, swindling tens of millions or even billions.
> 04
>
> **SMS Scams: 20 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
Various mobile SMS scams, such as lottery winnings requiring tax payment, court summons notices, or fake landlord messages about rent, range from a few thousand yuan to 3 million yuan per scam. Police stations in every Chinese city have mountains of such reports.
For example, Hangzhou once saw nine SMS scam cases in a single day, involving phone bill arrears and car purchase tax refunds, with scammers making off with 5.44 million yuan. Thousands of SMS scammers are estimated to illegally profit over 20 billion yuan annually.
> 05
>
> **Dating Scams: 25 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
These scammers pose as wealthy, handsome men on dating sites or through matchmaking services, targeting women desperate to marry, swindling them of money and sex. For instance, two women fell for QQ dating scams, losing over 500,000 yuan.
Another example: a scammer posing as a Chinese-American, claiming his friend was in Obama's cabinet, swindled 7 million yuan from one woman.
There are too many women eager to marry, and some men specialize in this. They dress well, spend lavishly, claim to be in big business, and quickly charm their targets. They get sex first, then claim a business cash flow problem or a promising project that could buy her a house, and soon her money is in his hands.
Not only are there hundreds of thousands of domestic dating scammers, but foreign scammers also target naive Chinese women.
Malaysian police note that some African scammers are based in Malaysia, conducting cross-border fraud against women in China and Taiwan via dating. There are over a thousand such cases annually, with hundreds of Nigerian scammers alone taking 500 million ringgit (about 1 billion yuan) in 2012.
Combined domestic and international, this industry siphons 25 billion yuan from naive Chinese women annually.
> 06
>
> **Human Trafficking Scams: 30 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
Scammers who traffic women and children, even scamming acquaintances. They don't follow the principle of not poaching from your own backyard. In one Shenzhen neighborhood, over 10 children were abducted in a month, with children even tricking other children. They sell the children and force women into prostitution or sell them to remote villages.
Selling a woman or child can earn 50,000 yuan. Globally, about 1.2 million children are trafficked annually. If China accounts for a quarter, that's 300,000 children, generating 15 billion yuan. Adding women, another 15 billion, bringing the annual value to 30 billion yuan.
> 07
>
> **Franchise Scams: 35 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
The booming entrepreneurship market is riddled with constantly mutating illegal franchise scams. Examples include the "Dahai Accessories" franchise that swept up over 6 million yuan, and the "Mcking" fast-food micro-store franchise that took over 200 million yuan.
For instance, jewelry and diamond processing franchise scams claim to teach you how to produce diamonds and jewelry, with some franchises earning 40-50 million yuan at their peak. Some veteran scammers have even bought seven or eight luxury properties in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
There are tens of thousands of such franchise scam companies across China.
> 08
>
> **Counterfeiting Scams: 40 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
These scammers specialize in counterfeiting, without any ethics. They produce fake alcohol, drinks, and food that endanger lives, as well as fake steel and cement that compromise construction quality. The media has exposed many such cases.
It's said China's counterfeiting industry causes economic losses of up to 9 billion euros, equivalent to 900 billion yuan. Since counterfeit goods are cheaper, the actual output is discounted to around 40 billion yuan.
> 09
>
> **Gold Speculation Scams: 45 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
In 2009, China cracked its largest illegal gold futures case, the "Century Gold Case," with total transactions of 58.3 billion yuan.
In 2013, a post-80s couple manipulated underground gold trading, siphoning 2.3 billion yuan in 8 months. With 600 billion yuan in transactions over 8 months, nearly 40,000 victims, and total fraud of 2.3 billion yuan.
It's estimated China has 7,000 underground gold trading companies, with at least half being scams. At 100 million yuan per scam, that's 45 billion yuan in illegal profit annually.
> 10
>
> **Pyramid Schemes: 50 Billion Yuan Illegal Profit Annually**
In 2008, Handan County police dismantled two illegal pyramid schemes, dispersing over 20,000 members, with each case involving hundreds of millions of yuan. If a single county can develop tens of thousands of members and scam hundreds of millions, imagine the national scale.
In 2008, Shandong cracked a network pyramid scheme. Under the guise of developing a LOB distance education network, they recruited hundreds of thousands across 20 provinces, with involved amounts reaching 890 million yuan.
In 2008, Guangxi's pyramid scheme army reached 2 million people, swallowing over 20 billion yuan. Undoubtedly, pyramid schemes are currently China's largest scam industry, with annual output exceeding 50 billion yuan.
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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: New Distribution
- Published: 2016-09-28
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/china-s-top-ten-scam-industries-rake-in-300-billion-yuan-annually-f8c50cbf/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rU_NGEFze_PPt1RP6DLP0A

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