Malaysia-based romance scammers who duped Hongkongers out of HK$30 million arrested
Two men and two women, said to have swindled cash after striking up relationships online, held after raid on alleged operation centre
Local and Malaysian police have busted a Kuala Lumpur-based syndicate that they say duped 48 Hong Kong women and one elderly man out of HK$29.5 million since January in online romance scams.
One victim lost HK$6 million to a con artist pretending to be a British engineer.
The alleged ringleader of the transnational racket was among two Nigerian men, a Nigerian woman and an Indian woman picked up during a raid on their operational centre in the Malaysian capital on October 24.
And in Hong Kong, police arrested five local women whose bank accounts were suspected to have been used to transfer the scammed cash to accounts in Malaysia and Taiwan. They were arrested for money laundering and obtaining property by deception, and released on bail pending further investigation.
Sources said the women were initially scam targets themselves. But when the con artists failed to get money from them, they used their accounts to filter the cash instead. Police were looking into whether the women knew the money was criminal proceeds.