Update | Phone scammers posing as mainland officials cheat Hong Kong victims out of HK$85 million in a month
Fraud cases involving bogus mainland officials continue to surge – and police say epidemic is hurting their ability to tackle other offences
A massive surge in crime involving telephone con artists posing as mainland officials has cheated Hongkongers out of HK$85.4 million in this month alone, police said yesterday.
Even as police said the sheer scale of the burgeoning racket was hampering their ability to tackle other crimes, the force made its first arrest in connection with scams involving tricksters claiming to be calling from Beijing's liaison office in the city.
The 30-year-old suspect, a local woman from Sha Tin, is accused of cheating a retired woman in Happy Valley out of HK$200,000 last week. She was arrested yesterday when she allegedly approached the victim again for another HK$300,000. Officers found fake Independent Commission Against Corruption and police identity cards in her possession.
Police suspect she was working as a money collector for a syndicate, as she did not make the calls herself and the money was transferred to the mainland. More arrests may follow.
According to police sources, tricksters duping victims by pretending to be staff from key mainland and Hong Kong institutions had contributed "significantly" to a drop in the crime detection rate. The rate fell to 40.4 per cent in the first half of the year, a 10-year low.
A total of 263 people had fallen victim to the fake-official scam, police director of crime and security Lo Mung-hung said. Typically, Putonghua or Cantonese-speaking fraudsters tell victims they have broken mainland laws before directing them to bogus government websites where they are shown forged arrest warrants or injunctions containing their photo and other personal details.
"I guess one would not have fallen prey to such scams had he or she not had a frequent business connection with the mainland or [been] involved in illegal activities," Lo said, adding he believed many more people ignored the calls and didn't inform police.
The victims - mostly aged under 50 in contrast to previous scams targeting senior citizens - are then told to prove their willingness to cooperate by transferring money to mainland bank accounts.
Another 466 similar fraud attempts were unsuccessful in the period, bringing the total of scams to 729 cases in the first 28 days of the month. "It is three times [the number] of similar reports recorded in the first six months of this year," Lo said.
There were a total of 929 cases involving a monetary loss of HK$112.1 million recorded this year up to Tuesday. In the first six months, police received 200 cases involving HK$26.7 million, up from only four such cases in the whole of last year.
Police set up a task force this month to coordinate all related cases and enhance sharing of intelligence with mainland authorities, Lo said, adding that the masterminds were working outside the city but had accomplices in Hong Kong.
Police have made only one other arrest over this type of scam - a Hong Kong man who allegedly posed as an officer to collect money from victims in person.
Scammers recently used software that could fraudulently display the liaison office's main line as the incoming number. Lo said police were now working with the Communications Authority to eliminate that problem.
