Veteran Chinese soprano, 73, cheated out of HK$20m in Hong Kong’s largest single phone scam

2015-8-11

■ Soprano Li Yuanrong, who was cheated out of HK$20 million

73-year-old Chinese soprano becomes biggest single victim of phone fraudsters as Hong Kong and mainland Chinese police bosses meet over crime spree

A veteran Chinese soprano has become the biggest Hong Kong loser in a spate of telephone scam attempts after con artists from the mainland cheated her out of HK$20 million.

Police sources said the sum stolen from Li Yuanrong, 73, was probably the highest single yield for the racket, in which the culprits pretend to be mainland officials over the phone.

Gangs of phone scammers have cheated Hongkongers out of HK$126 million in 308 cases in the last month.

The ongoing crime spree sparked a high-level meeting between local and mainland police in Beijing yesterday to discuss how to crack down on national and cross-border phone fraud.

Police director of crime and security Lo Mun-hung, who led a team of officers to attend the meeting organised by the Ministry of Public Security, admitted upon returning to Hong Kong last night that retrieving all the money lost to the scammers was unlikely even if the masterminds were caught.

"Once they get the money, in no time it will be put in many different accounts, so the chance of getting all the money back is slim," Lo said.

The latest case came to light yesterday when police received a call from Li at about 10.45am. She lives with her husband Wang Guotong, 76, in Percival Street, Causeway Bay.

Li is a graduate of the China Conservatory of Music, the alma mater of first lady Peng Liyuan , while Wang is a renowned erhu virtuoso in China. The couple came to Hong Kong in 1991, and Wang headed the Chinese music department at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts from 1992 to 2004.

Li received a call from a man on July 24, claiming to be a Hong Kong postal official, informing her that she was accused of involvement in a deception case on the mainland.

"She was told the call was transferred to Shenzhen police and then the prosecutor's office before she was asked to pay money," another police source said. "She was also ordered not to tell her family."

The singer transferred a total of HK$20 million into several mainland bank accounts in six or seven payments.

It is understood staff members from a local bank and a remittance company had warned her about a possible phone scam, but she ignored them. "She told our officers she was so frightened," the source said.

Li later realised she had been duped when she discussed the matter with family members.

Senior Assistant Commissioner Lo said last night that from what he had learned from his mainland counterparts, the scam was "an industry in itself" with con artists working under a clear structure and division of labour.

The scammers operate in teams of callers, online technical support staff and money collectors, all taking orders from the masterminds, he said.

Lo said police on both sides of the border would take joint action against scammers, as well as sharing regular intelligence and coordinating investigations.

In a typical scam, Putonghua or Cantonese-speaking fraudsters tell victims they have broken mainland laws before directing them to bogus law enforcers or to government websites that show forged arrest warrants.

"These cases are difficult to detect because key figures behind them work outside Hong Kong," another source said.

Source: South China Morning Post