A criminal gang made up of postgraduate students from elite universities in mainland China conned multiple people out of more than 100 million yuan (US$16 million) through a disposable smartphone app, cybersecurity authorities reported.

Three suspects were arrested in December last year, of whom all were computer science postgraduate students from the country’s top institutes including Tsinghua University, said the Office of Cyber Security. More than 30 cellphones were raided during the operation, the office added.

Mainland Chinese media reported that the fraud was first discovered by a woman living in Ningbo in the coastal Zhejiang province, who had bought credits worth 180,000 yuan on an investment app.

The woman, surnamed Liu, later encountered difficulties withdrawing money from the app. She was unable to open the app after several attempts.

According to the police investigation, the trio designed multiple single-use investment apps through a source code, so that they could abandon the app every time someone had been scammed.

The investigation was still underway, police said.

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