China has been battling telecom and online scams that cause huge distress and financial harm to their victims.

The country successfully resolved 464,000 cases related to telecom and network law offenses and crimes last year, with 351 ringleaders and key members of criminal groups arrested. Experts say that about 80 percent of the perpetrators of telecom frauds on Chinese citizens are based abroad. This has made tackling the crimes and recovering losses very hard and costly.

This month, the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced plans to crack down on overseas telecom fraud in accordance with the law and intensify the investigation and disruption of criminal gangs colluding with foreign forces, in a move to safeguard the vital interests of the Chinese public.

An elderly woman from Shenyang, Liaoning Province who prefers to be anonymous has almost seen her life savings being wiped out by online fraud six months ago.

She said her grandson bought game coupons on the phone and then received a threatening call requesting he provide his parents' personal details including bank account number since he's under the legal age for the coupon purchase. "They said they need the information to make a safety deposit to revoke my grandson's case and that's how we lost our money." The elderly woman's money has been recovered thanks to new technology the local police adopted.

Local police in Shenyang set up a new center to study such crimes so they now have powerful surveillance and enforcement tools to crack them.

"The new system of the center applies technologies such as big data and cloud computing, which can be quickly used to identify suspects and give precise alerts to local police stations," said Sun Haoxuan, the captain of the center at Shenyang Public Security Bureau. "In other words, it helps us to be more proactive in our role."

As early warnings and alerts have been strengthened, the anti-fraud police in Shenyang are putting prevention first. Potential fraudulent bank accounts are frozen immediately if the system send out an alert. The center gives full play to crime-prevention technology which detects fraud before or as it happens.

"The center has rolled out an anti-fraud mechanism where commissioners from banks, telecom providers, social media groups, online shopping platforms and many more can work face to face in tackling these crimes," said Zang Tao, the deputy director of the center.

"We crack down on these specialized frauds through special means. The number of cases solved in the city increased by over 370 percent year-on-year."