Hong Kong crime rate lowest in 48 years but social media scams almost double, police report
- Crime rate falls for 12th consecutive year but crimes of deception buck the trend, particularly romance-related and investment scams, which both rose
- Police open Twitter and Weibo accounts to raise awareness of scams, particularly among migrants and visitors
The number of social media scams in Hong Kong almost doubled in 2018 despite police reporting the lowest crime rate in 48 years, it was revealed on Tuesday.
Financial losses from the 2,064 reported cases of fraud totalled HK$500 million (US$63.7 million), 2½ times more than in 2017.
To raise awareness of scams, police have opened official Twitter and Weibo accounts, aiming to reach out to more new migrants and visitors.
Announcing the city’s crime statistics in the Legislative Council, Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung said a total of 54,225 crimes were reported in 2018 – a 3.2 per cent drop from the previous year. That translates to 728 cases per 100,000 people in Hong Kong, the lowest figure since 1970. The overall crime rate has now been declining for 12 years running.
Bucking the downward trend, crimes of deception surged 18.1 per cent year on year to 8,372 cases. Among all types of scams, including those by phone and email, police recorded a huge rise in cases of phishing on social media, from 1,063 in 2017 to 2,064 last year.
Huge explosion in online scams in 2018, mostly romance-related
Of those cases, 596 involved love-struck individuals being exploited and swindled out of HK$450 million. The amount defrauded by honeypot scammers in 2018 was almost three times more than in 2017. It also constituted 90 per cent of the total monetary losses in all social media scams last year.
Scams linked to investment also climbed by 55 per cent to 212 cases, defrauding victims of a total of HK$170 million.
Lo said culprits scouted for victims on social media, then got to know their friends and relatives to extend their scams.
“One of the difficulties we face is that some sectors of the community do not read newspapers or have access to online information.
“So we are finding new methods to penetrate different sectors. That’s why we opened accounts on Weibo and Twitter, hopefully to get the crime prevention message out to a wider spectrum of people and to stop the rising trend.”
How to stop someone you know falling for an online romance scam
The money she lost was nearly seven times the previous record for a single ruse – HK$26.4 million – which was swindled out of a public housing tenant over a period of 18 months.
Since the force launched the Anti-Deception Coordination Centre in July 2017, the unit has intercepted HK$140 million of suspicious transactions in 252 suspected deception cases.
Phone scams dropped 38 per cent to 615 cases in 2018 with scammers cheating Hongkongers out of HK$60 million, down by 73 per cent.
The overall crime detection rate decreased 1.7 per cent to 46.5 per cent, with more than 28,966 people arrested last year.
Homicide cases doubled last year to 48, but Lo attributed the rise to the Tai Po bus crash last February in which 19 passengers were killed. The bus driver was charged with 19 counts of manslaughter. All 48 cases had been solved.
The city saw a significant decrease in burglaries – with 1,575 cases reported in 2018, down almost 16 per cent.
Despite a series of high-profile robberies of jewellery shops last year, the overall number of cases dropped 9.8 per cent to 147, the lowest since 1969.
Since the high-speed rail link to Guangzhou opened last September, police received 208 reports with 178 cases occurring under Hong Kong jurisdiction. Of those cases, eight involved theft while the rest centred on lost property.
