A Hong Kong pro-establishment lawmaker has reported being targeted in an apparent scam in which a “middleman” claiming to work for the central government offered him a national-level post in exchange for a “service fee” of HK$500,000 (US$63,940). Edward Lau Kwok-fan, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said he received suspicious texts on Wednesday evening from someone who professed to work for Beijing’s liaison office in the city, telling him he would be given a “standing committee” spot if he was willing to pay up. The sender did not specify which standing committee, but the term typically refers to the upper echelons of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The places are usually reserved for the most senior Beijing loyalists in the city, including former chief secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen, who is one of 18 Hong Kong representatives on the CPPCC’s standing committee, and Tam Yiu-chung, the city’s sole delegate to the NPC’s. ‘Mainland officials’ make off with HK$726 million in Hong Kong phone scams “I know that it’s common for people to get scam calls, and it’s important to look into them. I have a first-person experience to share today,” Lau said in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday morning. The New Territories North lawmaker said the man who approached him claimed he could pull strings to help connect Lau with mainland officials at the liaison office and in Beijing. Screenshots of the conversation shared by Lau showed the man identified himself as a “middleman” for “Secretary General Wang” – a reference to Wang Songmiao, a senior official at the liaison office – and asked whether Lau was interested in a post on the “standing committee”. He assured Lau that the offer was not a scam, adding: “If you don’t reply in five minutes, I will tell my superior.” “After receiving the texts, I had a feeling that it was likely to be a scam,” Lau said on Thursday. The sender told Lau he had approached another lawmaker, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, claiming Fok had agreed. He then sent Lau a receipt for a transfer of HK$800,000 by a “Fok K** K*** Ken***”. Lau then got a call from a person who claimed to be Fok. Lau said he subsequently called Fok himself for clarification, with the latter denying the claim. In a Facebook post of his own, Fok called out the scammer and said the receipt had been forged. The Post has reached out to Fok, who is currently out of town, for comment. “I knew Fok was in Beijing, but he said he just met Fok. So I knew this was a scam,” Lau said, urging his followers to be mindful of con artists claiming to be connected to people they knew. ‘It’s a man!’: online scammers using fake naked women for blackmail The sender said he would take Lau to Wang the day after he made the payment, and asked Lau to wire the money to a Chinese medicine practitioner named Ng Chun-lam. When Lau pushed back, saying it was too late at night to carry out the transaction, the sender pressed him repeatedly. “I need to report to my superior. You think about whether you want to be an ally or enemy,” the person said. “You are insulting my intelligence, Mr Lau,” he added, when Lau told him he was not able to transfer the money at such a late hour. “The chance has been offered to you, Mr Lau. I am reporting it to my superior now and you don’t need to come tomorrow.” Hong Kong online scam victims report losing HK$3 billion for love, jobs, sex Lau said he reported the case to Sheung Shui Police Station on Thursday. Hong Kong has seen a flurry of scam calls in recent years, with imposters claiming to be mainland officials and local health authorities calling victims to accuse them of breaking the law in a bid to extort money from them. The police’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre issued scam alerts late last year amid a 75 per cent rise in the amount of money victims lost to fraudsters in the first eight months of 2021. While the number of victims dropped by 17.9 per cent during that period, total losses surged 75 per cent, to nearly HK$643 million (US$82.6 million), according to police.