756 fraud cases found on Xiaohongshu in 2025: CIB

Taipei, Dec. 10 (CNA) Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Wednesday said that it has found a total of 756 fraud cases in the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu in the first 11 months of 2025.

The most common type of fraud on the app, known in English as RedNote, is fake online auctions (283 cases), followed by cancelling installment payments (196), fake investments (51), catfishing or creating a fake identity online to lure someone into a relationship, often for financial gains (43), and sex service scams (23), according to a release by the CIB's Fraud Prevention Center.

Last year, there were 950 fraud cases on the app, it added.

The agency said that scams involving canceled installment payments, fake online auctions, and fake investments often begin with contact through in-app trading platforms, after which scammers lure victims onto messaging apps such as LINE and then to external trading platforms to complete the "transaction."

Once there, the scammer typically claims the purchase cannot be completed and sends the victim a fake customer-service website or LINE account for the trading platform. The fake representative then instructs the victim to carry out "verification" transfers, leading to the loss of their funds.

In relation to the fraud cases on Xiaohongshu, the center said that the CIB has reported 58,882 sets of fraud websites to the Taiwan Network Information Center to block their domain name systems from August 2024 to November 2025.

The government on Dec. 4 ordered Taiwan's internet service providers to block Xiaohongshu for one year due to cybersecurity and fraud concerns.

• Taiwan blocks Xiaohongshu amid fraud, security concerns

In response to a police officer's post on the social media platform Dcard claiming he had never handled any Xiaohongshu-related fraud cases, the Fraud Prevention Center said that frontline officers deal with a large volume of cases every day, and the absence of one officer's experience does not mean such cases do not exist. The center added that the anti-fraud system has indeed logged scam cases linked to Xiaohongshu.

Regarding online platforms violating anti-fraud regulations, the center said it has collected evidence showing Meta's failures to disclose the advertiser and investor information, management system shortcomings, and failure to remove fraudulent ads in a timely manner, and reported these violations to the competent authority, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, three times, resulting in a total fine of NT$18.5 million (US$593,132).

The CIB also searches daily for advertisements, social media groups, and fanpages that impersonate businesspersons, financial celebrities, and online personalities, which are reported to the platform to be taken down, the center said.

The CIB has reported more than 20,000 such cases this year as of Monday, it added.

Individuals who discover such impersonations can also report them via Facebook's official reporting procedures, the center urged.