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SHANGHAI, CHINA - CHINESE police said on Friday they had broken up a gang of eight people accused of sending fake cellphone messages asking for donations of money after a devastating earthquake struck southwest China.
Police in Shanghai, the country's financial hub, said in a statement that they had received a number of reports of messages sent to mobile phone users calling for donations after Monday's deadly quake in Sichuan province.
'Daddy and mummy, the quake has depleted me of everything and I am in urgent need of money! Please send money to my friend's bank card,' one such message carried in Friday's Shanghai Morning Post read, followed by an account number.
The police tracked the messages and bank accounts and on Thursday arrested the swindlers, headed by a man surnamed Hu, in Guizhou province neighbouring Sichuan, the police statement said.
State media reported on Thursday that the death toll from the massive quake was expected to exceed 50,000 as tens of thousands of people are believed trapped under the rubble of collapsed structures.
The confirmed death toll in Sichuan alone has exceeded 19,500, state media has quoted officials as saying. -- AFP
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