Beijing : Eighty-five persons were jailed for upto 13 years for a telecom fraud using fake medical advertisements to collect contact details in China’s Mongolia region, a court said on Friday.

The case surfaced after a resident in Ordos reported to police that he was cheated out of $5,560 in the suspected fraud in July 2016.

Following a probe, the police arrested the suspects in November 2016, Xinhua news agency reported.

The criminals had published fake medical advertisements to collect contact information of the victims.

They contacted them by mobile or social networking platforms, pretending to be relatives or students of medical workers, and convinced them to buy false healthcare or food products.

From mid-June to November 2016, more than 8,900 victims were cheated out of over $1.6 million.

Three of the accused were sentenced to 11 to 13 years in prison, while another 82 were given prison terms of between one and six years.

—IANS