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