Bank Photo: IC

A man successfully freed himself from a pyramid selling group as he was being forced to withdraw money from a bank by showing his middle finger to a bank teller, who was smart enough to not get irritated by the gesture, but quickly understood the "help" message written on it. 

The 20-year-old man, named Xiaoke, had fallen prey to the group in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province after he had been controlled by some "net friends" he had met, but later found were "up to something illegal."

After several failed attempts to escape, he finally got the chance to go out when he was taken to a local bank, where the criminals asked him to withdraw 80,000 yuan ($12,500) from his account. 

Xiaoke seized the opportunity to turn to the bank teller for help by writing "110"—the phone number of police in China—on his middle finger, and calmly showed it to the teller.

The teller soon understood Xiaoke's message and made an excuse to leave to make a police call. 

The police arrived a few minutes later, and caught two of the three criminals at the scene.