Indonesia Deports 101 Taiwan Fraud Suspects

Indonesia deported on Monday 101 Taiwanese nationals who were among hundreds arrested across Asia for their suspected role in a massive online fraud, an immigration spokesman said.

Besides the Taiwanese, Indonesia last week arrested 76 Chinese nationals at 15 different sites across Jakarta, and they were deported to Beijing on Saturday.

"The 101 Taiwanese have been deported this morning from Soekarno Hatta airport to Taipei on an Air China flight," immigration office spokesman Herawan Sukoaji told AFP.

Nearly 600 suspects, including 410 Taiwanese and 181 Chinese nationals, were nabbed in a carefully planned operation spanning six countries for allegedly running Internet and telephone scams mainly targeting mainland Chinese.

They were arrested in Taiwan, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand on Thursday.

Details of the scams are sketchy and appeared to have varied from country to country, but police believe thousands of people were taken in.

In Indonesia, the suspects rented houses with broadband access and, posing as officials, made phone calls over the Internet to con victims in China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam into giving them money, police said.

- By Agence France-Presse