Hongkongers lost more than HK$9 billion to scams last year, helping to fuel 29% rise in crime
- City recorded 90,276 crimes last year, with 44 per cent involving scams, according to police chief Raymond Siu
- Murder reports dropped to 28 cases last year, with nine cases involving domestic violence
Hongkongers lost more than HK$9 billion (US$1.15 billion) in a variety of scams last year, with an uptick in cases helping to fuel a nearly 30 per cent surge in reported crimes, the police chief has said.
In delivering his annual roundup to lawmakers on Tuesday, Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee also stressed that while traditional offences, such as robbery, had increased in 2023 against the previous year, the base of comparison was low given there were fewer crimes when the city was locked down due to the pandemic.
The city recorded 90,276 crimes last year, a 28.9 per cent rise over 2022’s figure, while the overall detection rate, or the proportion of crimes solved, stood at 31.1 per cent, he said.
“Since the first half of 2022 still saw pandemic restrictions, the tally for traditional crimes was particularly low, with some reaching historical lows,” he said. “As society recovered in 2023, most traditional crimes also rose.”
Police last year handled 39,824 scams, accounting for 44.1 per cent of all recorded crimes.
Siu drew attention to a rise in the number of accounts being used to launder money in criminal operations, revealing the force had arrested about 6,500 people for such offences last year.
In total, 9,239 suspects were held over scams and money laundering offences last year.
Murder reports dropped to 28 cases last year, or two fewer than in 2022, he said. Nine cases involved domestic violence while one case remains unsolved as the suspect had fled the city on the day of the offence.
Robberies and burglaries dropped to their second-lowest level on record, sitting at 97 and 1,354 reports respectively, according to the police chief. The force’s detection rate for robberies rose to a record high of 82.5 per cent.
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Measuring rates against levels recorded in 2018 before social unrest and the pandemic struck, robberies were down by 34 per cent while burglaries had fallen by 14 per cent.
The city recorded 3,636 cases of wounding and serious assault cases last year, which was 22 more than 2022, with domestic violence reports the biggest contributor to the increase.
But this number was 20.8 per cent down over 2018’s figure, and stood at the second-lowest level in the past 50 years.
Serious drug crimes fell by 283 cases to 1,153 last year. Fewer juveniles were involved, with 48 students arrested, a 50 per cent drop over 2022’s number.
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But the amount of intercepted illegal drugs rose between 25 per cent to more than 200 per cent, depending on the type of narcotic involved.
For national security cases, the commissioner said 290 people had been arrested since the promulgation of the Beijing-imposed law in 2020. About 60 per cent of them had been charged.
But Siu highlighted that the force remained concerned over the situation of youngsters committing crimes in the city, and the force had been cooperating with the Education Bureau to launch awareness campaigns and teacher training sessions on crime risks.
Last year, 3,041 youngsters were arrested, or 10 per cent more than in 2022. These teeangers mostly participated in scams and theft.
