A 62-year-old local man told the police on Tuesday that he had been cheated out of 60,000 yuan in a phone scam in which he mistakenly believed that the caller was his son-in-law, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to Lou, the victim told the police that he received a call on his smartphone on Monday evening with the caller calling him “ah-bah” (“daddy”) and telling him that he was his son-in-law. The victim’s purported “son-in-law” told him that he had a new phone number and told him to save the new number. The “son-in-law” also told him that he had been caught by the police in the mainland for having sex with a prostitute and asked him to lend him 60,000 yuan to pay bail. He also told his “daddy” not to tell other family members, and he gave him a mainland bank account number.
Lou said the victim withdrew 60,000 yuan on the following day but he was unable to go to the mainland to deposit the money on that day. The “son-in-law” told him to go instead to a pawnshop in Taipa which could transfer the money to his mainland bank account. After “daddy” had transferred the money, his “son-in-law” promised to keep him posted. However, the victim never received any response and he called the “old” phone number of his “real” son-in-law who answered the call and told him that he was sleeping at home. He told the victim that neither had he gone to the mainland nor had he had sex with a prostitute there. The victim finally realised that he had been defrauded and reported the case to the police.
No-one had been arrested at the time of the press conference, according to Lou.
