Hong Kong police arrest suspected fraudsters who they say used fake deposit slips and bad cheques to buy luxury goods online
- Four members of syndicate picked up in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui on Monday
- Youngest member is 15-year-old boy who was used to collect items from unsuspecting victims
Hong Kong police have arrested a gang of suspected fraudsters they believe used bogus bank deposit slips and bad cheques to buy luxury goods online from unsuspecting victims.
The four local residents, who police said were members of a syndicate, were picked up in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui on Monday when they tried to obtain three watches with a total value of HK$1.1 million (US$141,600) from three shops.
Announcing the arrests on Wednesday, Chief Inspector Wu Miu-yee said she believed the gang had been operating for several months, and police were still trying to establish how many people had been cheated and how much money was involved.
According to police, the youngest suspect is a 15-year-old boy who was assigned to collect items from the gang’s victims.
Police said the swindlers posed as buyers and targeted sellers of luxury goods, including individuals online and retail shops, and communicated with their targets through online messaging services.
“Fraudsters made cheque deposits to the bank accounts of the sellers and then emailed forged bank deposit slips to the sellers to deceive them that the transfers were made immediately,” Wu said.
The gang then sent someone to collect the goods.
Sellers did not realise they had been cheated until the cheques bounced, she said.
Following the arrest of the four suspects on Monday, officers raided a hotel room in Hung Hom, occupied by the gang, on the same day.
Inside the room, police found forged deposit slips, along with a computer and a printer used to make the fake documents. Officers also found a small quantity of crystal meth and an instrument used to take the drug.
Cash and valuables worth more than HK$100,000 burgled from clinics
Police arrested the four men for conspiracy to defraud and possession of an illegal drug and an instrument used to take drugs.
Wu said the investigation was continuing and further arrests were possible.
In Hong Kong, the number of deception cases dropped 1.9 per cent to 8,216 in 2019 from 8,372 the previous year.
Police said the drop in cases was mainly because of a decrease in online deception, which saw an 18.8 per cent drop from 6,354 in 2018 to 5,157 in 2019.
Cases of email fraud also dropped 15.2 per cent to 888 in 2019 from 1,023 the year before, but the amount involved surged 47.8 per cent to HK$2.5 billion.
