The Indonesian police has arrested 85 Chinese nationals and 6 Indonesians over an online scam that defrauded victims of over 36 billion Indonesian rupiah (2,56 million USD).

The victims were mainly from mainland China, while the arrests were made in Jakarta and Malang city, earlier this week after the Indonesian authorities received a tip off from their Chinese colleagues.

The arrests come just several days after 700 Chinese citizens were arrested in Malaysia over a major online investment scam.

The investment scam that triggered the latest arrests have been running for over 4 months. The police did not specify how many people have been scammed.

"They pretended to be police or prosecutors and called their victims, telling them that they had legal problems, and demanded money to settle the issue”, said Gatot Eddy Pramono, Jakarta police chief, adding that "some of them also pretended to be bankers offering investments”.

In a similar case exposed in Thailand the victims of the notorious Forex- 3D Ponzi scheme turned out to be well over 30 000. They were offered 10% monthly returns over an initial deposit of about 2000 USD. The Forex- 3D Pomzi scheme costed investors over 4 billion Thai Baht or roughly 130 million USD.