Qingpu District police have arrested three former fraud prisoners from Sichuan Province suspected of repeating their crimes in Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
Police said they caught the trio in their minibus at a toll station on August 21.
The Qingpu police had dispatched officers to check all minibuses at toll stations leading out of town after being alerted by two victims who were cheated out of 10,000 yuan (US$1,205) on August 13.
Poor migrant workers, surnamed Heng and Zhou, from Jiangsu, lost their savings to the alleged swindlers after being hit by an elaborate scam while waiting for a bus on August 13.
A red minibus pulled up beside them and two men, Lin and Xie, offered a cheap bus rate.
Just as the workers were considering the deal, a man appeared to drop his wallet in front of them.
Lin picked up the wallet and suggested the men divide the money evenly.
When the four were about to get onto the bus, the man returned and said they had stolen his wallet.
He was actually an accomplice of the two who offered the lift.
Lin and Xie then took out all their own belongings, put them into a bag and told the man to search them for the wallet.
The victims did the same, including putting the 10,000 yuan banknotes into the bag.
The man found nothing after body-searching the four and begged to be driven to work to prove to his boss why he was late.
Lin and Xie agreed, and told the victims they had hidden the wallet and would divide the money when they returned.
But when Heng and Zhou opened the bag an hour later, they could only find scrap papers instead of their banknotes.