CBC Late Night News
Sunday, November 12

Marivel Taruc, Host of CBC Late Night News: An update on the story we've been following this week: Toronto Police say they have located one of the three Chinese national studying in Canada who was targeted in a kidnapping scam. Juanwen Zhang, 20, was found safe today. Two others are still missing though: 16-year old Ke Xu who goes by Jaden was last seen last Thursday morning in the Midland & Eglington area. 17-year old Yue Liu was seen Friday night near Yonge & Finch Avenue West, the teen goes by Kandy. Police say as part of the alleged scam, people are contacting the teens' families back in China, demanding money for their release. Similar scams targeting Chinese students have been reported elsewhere in Canada. And British Columbia Police say the scammers threatened the students claiming that they were implicated in a crime.

There has been growing concerns throughout the community. Lorenda Reddekopp has been following this story. She spoke with the Executive Director of the Centre for Immigrant and Community Services, and she started by asking her reaction to these scams.

Moy Wong-Tam, Executive Director of Centre for Immigrant and Community Services: I just thought, not again! There were similar incidents before involving international students. I just felt that these teenagers must be terrified. They're probably in hiding. We're hoping that they will be safe and will be found soon. And it must be terrifying to be all alone dealing with something so horrendous, thinking something bad will happen to their families or their parents. And just how heartless these scammers are!

Lorenda Reddekopp (CBC Reporter): Is there something about students from China that you could see that they would be more likely to be targeted with something like this?

Moy Wong-Tam: I think the first thing that comes to my mind is language, or the lack of fluency in English. A lot of Chinese students are the only child in their family, and they are well protected. They have their parents and grand-parents, two sets of grand-parents looking after them, so they seldom have to worry at home. So I don't think they are terribly well trained to handle crisis or emergency situations. And they are not familiar with the Canadian way of life, because the system in China is quite different, and they don't know who they can trust, how the legal system works, whether you can trust the police. So the scammers are quite sophisticated. They use high-tech. They also use very official looking documents with photos and all kinds of language, even citing sections of the law to convince them. So it's vey convincing. I've heard of friends who are not students, who are quite grown-up adults, who have also received this kind of scam letters or phone calls. But you always have to be on alert, because the scammers are out there to get anybody they can.

Lorenda Reddekopp: And what did those letter say?

Moy Wong-Tam: I think they will try to find an excuse to get your personal identify, to get your your bank account number.

Lorenda Reddekopp: Yesterday I spoke to an expert in the U.S. where the scam there started out, it was Spanish-speaking people in that country who were targeted. In that case though, it was lower amounts of money that was being asked for. What we're hearing this time is that the ransom demands are pretty high with the Chinese families. What are your thoughts about that?

Moy Wong-Tam: I think there is also this misconception that all Chinese students must be wealthy, and that is quite far from the truth. Many international students are here with borrowed money, or money collected from many relatives and family members. So definitely they aren't all wealthy, but there is this misconception.

Marivel Taruc: That's the CBC's Lorenda Reddekopp reporting.