Hong Kong police arrest 114 after 163 people scammed out of HK$73 million
- Online job scams and phone deception tactics used to trick residents into handing over between HK$1,000 and HK$20 million each, police say
Hong Kong police have arrested 114 people on suspicion of swindling 163 residents out of more than HK$73 million (US$9.4 million) in an 18-day crackdown on online scams and telephone deception cases.
Inspector Ng Chak-kui of the Wong Tai Sin technology and financial crime squad said on Friday that the suspects, arrested between June 3 and Thursday, included four people from a fraud syndicate who used fake job offers targeting 45 of the victims over the past three months.
Ng said the racket posted the adverts on social media platforms, offering non-existent employment opportunities at chains such as restaurants, bakeries and karaoke establishments.
Fraudsters used the names and contact numbers of real employees to make the offers look more credible, he said.
In one situation, scammers impersonated a shop employee and cold-called another chain store to trick staff into revealing the name of their manager.
“Swindlers invented different excuses to coax jobseekers into paying up to tens of thousands of dollars as an administrative fee or surety,” Ng said.