Taiwan victims of a phone scam based on the mainland have had about 2.37 million yuan ($386,300) returned to them, the first such refund after a cross-Straits agreement on judicial cooperation was signed in 2009.

Seventeen victims were defrauded of their money in a scam based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, according to a statement released by the mainland's Supreme People's Court on Thursday.

The culprits, who are also Taiwan residents, pretended to be officers from the Taiwan judicial authorities in phone calls made from Hangzhou between 2008 and 2010. The criminals asked the victims to transfer money to certain bank accounts for security reasons. The chief culprit, not identified in the statement, received a life sentence.

Under a judicial cooperation agreement signed in April 2009, the mainland and Taiwan agreed to jointly crack down on severe crimes such as murder, smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering and terrorist activities. They also pledged to exchange information and help each other in investigations and in collecting evidence.

Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said the two sides have jointly solved more than 10,000 cases of phone fraud and arrested about 4,700 suspects since 2009.

(China Daily 06/14/2013 page2)