The girl informed her relatives, who contacted the local police department on Monday (May 16).
According to local news station Baotou News, a guy being held against his will by a pyramid scheme criminal organisation had scratched a few phrases on the banknote appealing for assistance.
According to the message, 11 people were being kept prisoner on the third story of a civic building. According to the message, they had been abducted and forced to work for the pyramid scheme while being guarded by a gang of armed thugs.
“After locating the building we arrived with a locksmith to open the door and then located the 11 prisoners,” the police said.
After being given appealing sounding positions, the 11 victims were led to Baotou to work for the phoney pyramid scam. They were held at the building and made to lie in order to persuade family and friends to join the operation.
The victims had been held prisoner for almost six months in certain cases.
The individual who scribbled the letter waited until the guards were distracted before scrawling the cry for assistance on the banknote and throwing it out a window.
According to the authorities, all of the victims have returned to their homes. The inmate who smuggled out the paper requesting assistance fell into tears as he expressed his appreciation to his rescuers before departing.
The pyramid scam is presently being investigated further. However, it is unknown whether any of the scheme’s participants were apprehended or prosecuted by authorities.
The young girl who discovered the note and raised the alarm has been lauded as a hero on Chinese social media.
One Weibo user said: “How smart the child is! She and her family didn’t flinch from helping these people.”
“The hero child deserves a bonus point in her future national college entrance exam,” another commented.
“Please do protect the child and her family from exposure, otherwise the pyramid operation criminals would come for revenge,” another warned.
Scams using pyramid schemes are popular in China, forcing unwary victims to work in slave-like circumstances.
In 2019, authorities in Anhui Province, southeastern China, dismantled a network of three million con artists who claimed to be selling a “NASA-certified” drink made from “life energy water” sourced from ancient oceans, but which turned out to be ordinary groundwater.
