The Beijing News
May 6, 2009

Like other newspapers in the capital, The Beijing News alerts readers to the danger danger of losing your credit card information to credit card thieves.

The cover photo shows a police officer pointing out a device attached to the frame of an ATM. The box, which bears the name of the bank, actually hides a camera that thieves use to obtain card information and passcodes from unwitting users.

The scam was first discovered by a woman who went to a branch of the Agricultural Bank of China near Beijing's Asian Games Village on April 28. She noticed two pieces of paper stuck to two machines informing her that they had been taken out of service for a software upgrade. The one remaining functioning ATM had a the rectangular object seen in the photo above attached on top of the machine, and another strange attachment on the card slot.

Suspicious, the woman called the police, who discovered that the object stuck to the top of the machine hid a needle camera, while the card slot attachment was a scanner that could read and record card numbers.

The cover also announces a follow-up report on the story of Baobao and Ah Zi, twin teenage girls who claimed they had sex with adults in order to get into the entertainment business. See this Danwei post from last July for background.

In the latest development, "talent scout" Meng Zhibang and Yuanyuan Movie and TV Studio boss Hu Weidong have gone to court on the charges of luring minors into multi-partner sexual relations and prostitution.

Sun Qiao, a third suspect who formerly worked for the Yuanyuan, confessed that the "studio" profited from the people the girls met for sexual encounters.

She said that the studio posted the girls' information on dating websites and helped to arranging meetings with men whose monthly income was required to be above 50,000 yuan. The girls were told to appeal to the sympathy of their customers and ask them for financial help.

One man admitted that he gave one of the girls 30,000 yuan to pay for her education, but he was unaware of any organized prostitution. The proceeds were divided 50-50 between the girls and the company. Hu used videos as leverage to keep the girls from leaving.

In court, the defendants' lawyer insisted on the innocence of his clients, while granting that the company did introduce the girls to industry leaders for drinks and karaoke, as promised. The court will announce its decision at a later date.