Spanish police have arrested more than 200 Chinese nationals suspected of running call centres from luxury villas that swindled over 16 million euros ($17 million) from their compatriots in China, officers said Wednesday.

"We are talking about thousands of Chinese citizens, mainly poor families who were robbed of their modest savings and which led some victims to commit suicide," national police commissioner Eloy Quiros told a news conference.

The gang would allegedly contact people by telephone in China, pretending to be neighbours, friends or family members and warned them of fraud scams.

In later calls member of the gang would pretend to be police investigating the scams and would convince victims to deposit money in bank accounts run by the ring to help the authorities in their investigation.

Police said they dismantled 13 call centres run out of large houses in upscale neighbourhoods around Madrid and the eastern cities of Barcelona and Alicante.

"In each call centre a large number of operators would work — in some cases up to 50 in the same building — in great secrecy, without interruption and rest," police said in a statement.

Over 600 officers took part in the operation carried out on Tuesday in cooperation with Chinese authorities, who alerted Spanish police in July that many Chinese nationals were falling victim to scam telephone calls made from Spain.

Police said all of the suspects who were detained were Chinese nationals who arrived in Spain as tourists and then stayed in the country.

Chinese immigrants make up the fifth biggest foreign community in Spain with almost 170,000 people as of 2015, according to the national statistics institute.

Ashley Madison dating site to pay $1.6 mn over breach
Washington (AFP) Dec 14, 2016 –

The operators of the Ashley Madison affair-minded dating website agreed Wednesday to pay a $1.6 million penalty over a data breach exposing data from 36 million users, US officials announced.

Ashley Madison's Canadian parent company Ruby agreed to the penalty to settle charges with the US Federal Trade Commission and state regulators for failing to protect confidential user information.

The settlement comes after a hacker group last year released what was said to be personal data on millions of members of Ashley Madison, who were based in 46 countries. The fallout led to reports of blackmail and even suicides.

The financial penalty, split between the federal government and US states suing the company, would increase to $8.75 million to the FTC plus $8.75 million to states if Ashley Madison fails to abide by new information security practices and refrain from misleading consumers.

"This case represents one of the largest data breaches that the FTC has investigated to date, implicating 36 million individuals worldwide," said FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

"The global settlement requires AshleyMadison.com to implement a range of more robust data security practices that will better protect its users' personal information from criminal hackers going forward."

– No compensation –

Ramirez said the penalty being paid is too small to allow for "redress" or compensation to affected consumers, noting that compensation is rarely obtained in data security cases.

"We want them (the company) to feel the pain, we don't want them to profit from unlawful conduct," Ramirez told reporters in a conference call.

But she added that "it would not serve the public interest to put them out of business."

Earlier this year, the dating website — whose motto had been "life is short, have an affair" rebooted, calling itself an "open-minded dating" service.

The company said at the time it will no longer use female "bots" or automated programs that respond to members pretending to be women on the hunt for men.

According to the FTC complaint, until August 2014, operators of the site lured customers, including 19 million Americans, with fake profiles of women designed to convert them into paid members.

The company failed to adequately protect users' personal information such as date of birth, relationship status and sexual preferences, according to the complaint.

The company confirmed the settlement, saying it would help it move past the hacking episode.

"Today is a pivotal day for our members and for Ashley Madison," said a statement from Ruby chief executive Rob Segal.

"Today's settlement closes an important chapter on the company's past and reinforces our commitment to operating with integrity and to building a new future for our members, our team and our company."

The settlement followed an investigation in cooperation with consumer protection authorities in Canada and Australia. Thirteen US states plus the federal District of Columbia joined the lawsuit.