RIGA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Police in Latvia have detained 110 people in connection with a phone scam in which residents of China might have been defrauded of 2 million euros in just a few months, Latvian law enforcement officials informed.
The arrests were made during a sweeping police operation in Riga and the vicinity this week.
Janis Lazdins, head of the Latvian criminal police, told a news conference Tuesday that responding to a legal assistance request from China, Latvian law enforcement authorities investigated the suspected scam for two months.
It was established during the probe that a group of criminals had been using several addresses in Latvia to operate their fraud scheme in China from the beginning of March to the end of July. They reportedly used telecommunications and the internet to steal more than 2 million euros from their victims in China.
The criminal police chief said that there is only one Latvian citizen among the 110 suspects nabbed. The others are foreign nationals, and several of them might be staying in Latvia illegally.
