Beggars are present in almost every city around the world and as you probably already know, not all those who ask you for a penny on a street corner are as poor as they seem, on the contrary. The same thing was demonstrated by the police in China who recently arrested 4 people accused of begging, they were seen by the police using iPhone terminals shortly after they frequented bus or subway stations asking for money from travelers coming or going from locations.
Ragged clothes, a tragic story and a begging bowl: beggars are not unusual sites in busy city squares or subway trains. But are they quite what they seem? Some could be richer than you. On Saturday, four "professional beggars" were caught in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, allegedly cheating money out of local people, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV. Local police were informed that four people were pretending to be penniless migrant workers, unable to return home on Saturday morning. When the police took the four to a local public security bureau they got more than they bargained for.
Inform as those people not even so poor as they seem and that in reality they even have iPhone terminals, the police arrested them to find out later that they had in front of them a group of criminals specializing in fraud. It seems that the men went on a "tour" of China, presenting themselves as poor workers who do not have money to return home after a week of work in the big cities of China, they have been practicing these scams for more than a year of days.
An initial investigation found the four to be from east China's Anhui Province. They disguise themselves as beggars before going on a "cheating tour" around the country. They usually claim to be migrant workers who lack the money to go home, and the public fall for it, one of them confessed to the police. Last month, they flew to Chongqing to "collect money" to prepare for Spring Festival — Chinese New Year — which falls on February 19. So far, each has raised some 800 yuan (130 US dollars). They all own expensive watches and iPhones. According to the police, one of them has an iPhone 6 Plus.
Begging the money of the Chinese, the men managed to collect about 130 dollars from the people who let themselves be deceived, but the amount is very small compared to the prices of the iPhones or the watches that they possessed. One of the "beggars" had an iPhone 6 Plus, and that says a lot about the people who ask for money on the street, in most cases this type of people have much more money than they let on with "appropriate" clothing.
The case in China is just one of the hundreds of thousands registered annually, and when you think of offering money to a person who seems to be in great need of it, analyze the situation well and don't throw money away to people who don't deserve it.
