Cross-border phone scams soar as conmen net $26m

2015-7-29

Phone scams soared in the first six months of the year involving about HK$26 million, police figures show.

Up to June, more than 1,370 cases were recorded, of which 89 involved large sums of money ranging from HK$100,000 to HK$8.02 million.

A further 246 victims lost between a few thousand dollars and HK$50,000.

Some 200 cases concerned fraudsters purporting to be officials from the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong.

Police said 167 of those cases were only reported last month.

Victims complained that, once they picked up the phone, they were informed they had engaged in money laundering and would be jailed or detained once they had entered the mainland.

They would then be directed to a Putonghua-speaking male impersonating Beijing's liaison office or Public Security Bureau officials warning them about the seriousness of the alleged offense.

In order to deceive victims, fraudsters would ask them to go on a fake website showing that the victims with their personal information posted had been wanted by mainland authorities.

The victims would be asked to verify personal information online and give out their online banking details.

Another scam entailed calling up victims about their packages with courier companies in the mainland, asking them to pay money. Chief inspector Lam Cheuk-ho, from the regional crime unit of Kowloon East, which handles all telephone scam cases, said victims are aged 20 to 50, including businessmen who travel often to the mainland and mainland students who study in the SAR.

"Most victims do not have criminal records and are not waiting for mail, but the made-up stories seem all too real," Lam said. They transfer money to the conmen.

As police suspect most of the cases involve cross-border fraud, they are now exchanging intelligence data with the Public Security Bureau in the mainland.

Lam said it would be useful if victims could give police the caller IDs they received or the bank accounts into which they were asked to transfer money.

Source: The Standard