One-line answer: yes. Under judicial guidance issued in June 2024, if you spent a cumulative 30 days or more inside an overseas scam compound within one year, a Chinese court can convict you of fraud and sentence you to three to ten years — even if prosecutors cannot prove a single victim or a single yuan of loss.

1. Why Chinese courts can reach conduct that happened abroad

The Criminal Law gives China jurisdiction in three ways. Article 6 treats an offence as committed in China if either the act or the result happened on Chinese territory — and in a scam aimed at people in China, both the calls and the losses land here. Article 7 applies Chinese law to Chinese citizens who commit crimes abroad, with one carve-out: where the maximum penalty is three years or less, prosecution may be waived. Article 8 covers foreigners who commit offences abroad against China or Chinese citizens where the minimum penalty is three years or more.

Article 10 adds that a person already tried and punished abroad can still face proceedings in China, although the foreign punishment may reduce or cancel the sentence here.

2. The 30-day rule: no victim, no amount, still fraud

The turning point is the Opinions on Handling Cross-Border Telecom and Online Fraud and Other Criminal Cases, issued by the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security on 26 June 2024. Where the amounts involved in an entire fraud group cannot be verified, a suspect who within one year travelled abroad to a criminal den and stayed there for a cumulative 30 days or more — or made multiple trips — is to be treated as having committed “other serious circumstances” under Article 266 of the Criminal Law. In other words, prosecution for fraud follows unless there is evidence that the trip abroad was for legitimate work.

Article 266 sets the tiers: a relatively large amount (RMB 3,000 to 10,000 under the 2011 judicial interpretation) carries up to three years; a huge amount, or other serious circumstances, carries three to ten years; an especially huge amount, or other especially serious circumstances, carries ten years to life. The 30-day rule places a defendant in the middle band with no proof of loss at all.

3. What this means in practice

The clock normally runs from the day you actually joined the den. If that cannot be established, investigators may start from the date you unlawfully left China, deducting reasonable travel time. Entry and exit records, hotel and SIM data and phone location trails are usually enough to fill the gap.

Two defences matter. Where you were coerced — the typical pattern of people trafficked into compounds in Myanmar or Cambodia — Article 28 requires the court to reduce or waive punishment for someone who took part under duress, and Article 27 gives a lighter outcome to accessories. Second, voluntary surrender and full restitution before prosecution are strong mitigating factors. Conversely, the Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law expressly reaches overseas organisations and individuals who target China, and allows 10 to 15 days of detention plus fines of one to ten times the illegal gains where conduct falls short of a crime.

4. A worked scenario

Hypothetical: a 24-year-old answers a Telegram advertisement for a “customer service” job in Laos, has his passport taken on arrival, works 12-hour shifts on a messaging app for seven weeks, and escapes. He flies home. On the current guidance his stay crosses the 30-day line, so the first question is not whether the group defrauded anyone — it is whether he can show he was coerced, and how early he cooperated.

The takeaway: keep every scrap of evidence from inside — contracts, chats, transfer receipts, medical records, flight stubs — report to the police yourself, and bring in a lawyer before the first interview.

FAQ

Q: Can China prosecute me for working at an overseas scam centre?

A: Yes. Under judicial guidance issued in June 2024, if you spent a cumulative 30 days or more inside an overseas scam compound within one year, a Chinese court can convict you of fraud and sentence you to three to ten years.

Q: Do prosecutors need to prove a victim or a loss?

A: No. Where the amounts involved in an entire fraud group cannot be verified, the 30-day rule places a defendant in the middle sentencing band with no proof of loss at all.

Q: How is the time inside the compound counted?

A: The clock normally runs from the day you actually joined the den. If that cannot be established, investigators may start from the date you unlawfully left China, deducting reasonable travel time.

Q: What if I was forced to work there?

A: Article 28 requires the court to reduce or waive punishment for someone who took part under duress, and Article 27 gives a lighter outcome to accessories. Voluntary surrender and full restitution before prosecution are also strong mitigating factors.

Q: Does a punishment abroad stop a Chinese case?

A: No. Article 10 provides that a person already tried and punished abroad can still face proceedings in China, although the foreign punishment may reduce or cancel the sentence here.

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Wang Guan | Co-founder, Beijing Haolue Law Firm | +86 17813108512