Mainland student in Hong Kong duped into giving her WeChat details, family hit with HK$755,000 fake kidnap claim
Victim told to deposit money in mainland account and avoid contact with family and friends
Phone scammers duped a university student from the mainland out of HK$755,000 in Hong Kong and then tried to trick victim’s father in Liaoning province out of an additional one million yuan (HK$1.16 million) by claiming his daughter had been kidnapped.
The swindlers even posted fake nude photographs of the 23-year-old Baptist University student to an online group using her WeChat account after her father did not pay up, a police source said.
The abduction claim sparked a citywide police search for the victim, who had been instructed by the con artists to turn off her phone and avoid contact with her parents and friends. She was found safe almost 24 hours later in a shopping mall in Sha Tin.
The Sha Tin resident told police she had received a call from a man claiming to be a Hong Kong immigration officer last Wednesday. He accused her of breaking mainland laws. The call was then transferred to another man, who claimed he was a security official from Shanghai. He accused her of being involved in a criminal case and asked her to transfer money into her mainland bank account as a surety.
Phone scammers cheat Hong Kong woman, 23, of parents’ HK$1 million life savings with fake arrest warrant
According to police, the victim was directed to a website showing a bogus arrest warrant for her. She was also asked to surrender her bank account details over the phone.