Want China Times
Date: 2015-09-05
By: Meng Hsiang-chieh and Staff Reporter

Five people were arrested on Sept. 3 by the police in Taiwan’s New Taipei City,

Google was one of the companies reportedly in cooperation with the Taiwanese company. (File photo/China Times)

charged with scamming over 1,000 people out of more than NT$100 million (US$3 million) in paid memberships for a “business” which claimed to collaborate with major internet search engines in keywords on the internet, reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.

The group, led by a man surnamed Huang, scammed victims by claiming that the group had teamed up with internet search engine giants Google, Yahoo and Bing to develop a business in the online keyword market since 2008. They bought keywords at low prices from the companies and sold the words to advertising companies for a premium, according to the storyline.

Huang nicked the picture of a CEO of an internet company in Florida and held several overseas events luring people to invest at least US$10,000 for a membership in the business. After becoming a member, investors would be offered a three-day trip to Macau for free. Huang even waved a “diamond-mounted iPhone 6” in front of investors for an investment of US$200,000 or more.     [FULL STORY]