300 victims of ‘living Buddha’ scam seek help from Hong Kong police after HK$80 million in losses
Group accuses a man on the run for cheating them with fake products and blessings, among other crimes
Some 300 people from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan sought police help on Tuesday after they were cheated in an HK$80 million scam by a Hongkonger who claimed to be a “living Buddha with healing and blessing powers”.
The group, representing only about half of the total number of victims, gathered at the police headquarters in Wan Chai, holding banners and cardboard signs accusing a man called “Chen Baosheng” of being a “fake Buddhist” who used sales tactics such as pyramid schemes to “cheat people all over China for 13 years”.
“They claimed that the 62-year-old man held identity documents from both Hong Kong and Taiwan, with some calling him ‘Chan Po-sang’ in Cantonese,” a police spokesman told the Post.
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Pro-establishment lawmaker Edward Lau Kwok-fan, who attended the group’s gathering, said the man cheated more than 600 victims from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan out of more than HK$80 million by selling them fake nutritious products through his followers.
He also took money from them in return for blessings, or for charms to ward off disasters, Lau said.
Lau added that Hong Kong police would deal with most of the cases as the suspect held a Hong Kong identity card. He said the man had set up a Buddhist temple in To Kwa Wan, Kowloon, before fleeing overseas.
“We urge police to spare no effort in investigating the cases thoroughly and to arrest the person, to stop Hong Kong from becoming a centre for fraud,” he said.
