Chinese swindles over $474,000 with bank passwords

Beijing, May 21 (IANS) A man in China has been jailed for over 13 years for swindling $474,000 (over three million yuan) from car owners in a bank card fraud. He took help of a man who was good at guessing individuals' passwords through details of their other financial records.

Zhu Kaihua, 20, a Jiangxi province native, was also fined 350,000 yuan by a city court in Shanghai

Prosecutors said Zhu targetted Shanghai's vehicle owners and bought their identity card numbers online in 2010. He chose the owners of expensive vehicles and paid bank employees to get their bank card numbers and personal credit records, Shanghai Daily reported.

With the information, Zhu hired Xue Yongbin who had a talent for rightly guessing the bank cards' passwords at least once in five times, the court heard.

Zhu collaborated with two vendors who offer services to pay utility bills for others at a discount. They will be tried separately.