After being convinced they were dying of cancer, or in dire need of a certain treatment, “medical tourists” from China handed over millions of renminbi to a hospital in Dubai in the good faith it would save their lives. Nanjing police have finally arrested those in China responsible for organising trips and sending people on “Dubai Royal Medical Checkup Tours”.
Shortly after arriving at the hospital in Dubai for a “royal checkup”, patients were told by “authoritative experts” that they were gravely ill and in immediate need of cancer treatment, there and then. In a few days, patients are said to have paid upwards of millions of yuan in treatments.
While people from across the nation have been affected by the colossal scam, the Nanjing Liuhe police department focused on fraud cases involving Jiangsu tourists. The police ended up making arrests in eight companies, along with agents and beauty salons, and recovered a total of ￥1.3m, according to Yangtze Evening News. Nationwide, over 1,000 victims have been defrauded through the scam, totaling ￥650m.
Reports revealed that once at the hospital, all medical reports were checked by an “internationally renowned” Chinese doctor, named Joe, whose profile showed up on a Baidu search without raising any alarms. Patients say the doctor would sit them down in the consultation room and shake his head solemnly, while revealing the patients were “already suffering from cancer”.
All patients were eventually told they had “the preludes to cancer; when they became overwhelmed and scared, doctors would then reveal that there is no cause for concern, as they have devised a treatment plan specifically for each patient, to save their lives.
Heavy metal detoxification (￥198,000), cell repairs to kidney (￥298,000) and liver (￥398,000), along with other “cancer controlling treatments” were pressed upon the patients via “brainwashing” and manipulation. Five victims were said to have received all treatments and spent a total in excess of over ￥1.5m at the Dubai hospital.
After receiving the treatments, the patients were later sent to a smaller hospital for “infusion”, where they were each put on a small drip . Upon returning to China, one patient took the bag with her and when a family member recognised that the bag was just hormone liquid, the group realised they had been scammed.
It turns out the doctor who read the scans and administered the treatment is, according to police, “an unemployed old woman from northeastern China”, who settled in Shenzhen. On account that she is familiar with a little medical terminology, the woman was able to defraud millions of renminbi every year via a biotech company in Guangzhou and the Dubai hospital scam.
The perpetrators would fool customers into accepting free overseas medical travel, tricking them out of their own country, and into medical examinations and medical consultations overseas. In the meantime, the so-called “internationally renowned experts” who read the medical reports to the victims, were all looking for specific people to fool.
No information regarding the hospital in Dubai or those involved in Dubai was available in the report.
