A female teenager was scammed out of 110,000 patacas and HK$15,000 by a female she met online last week, to “invest” in the scammer’s alleged mainland property, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said at a press conference yesterday.
Lou said the victim is a local 15-year-old, and she met the unidentified stranger through the dating software TT.
According to Lou, after the victim’s mother discovered that 110,000 patacas and HK$15,000 in cash had gone missing from her home, she asked her daughter about the money’s whereabouts. After her daughter revealed that she had been scammed online, the mother reported the case to the Judiciary Police, said Lou.
Lou said the victim told the police that she met the scammer in mid-March. After gaining the trust of the victim, the scammer requested the victim add her on QQ for a voice call, said Lou.
According to Lou, the scammer claimed that she had multiple properties in the mainland, and she could sell one of them cheaply for 100,000 yuan to the victim since the victim was a “close friend” of hers. Lou said the victim hoped that she could turn the investment into a profit for her parents, so she took 110,000 patacas and HK$15,000 in cash that her mother kept at home and bought TT credits with her mother’s money by following the scammer’s instructions on May 9.
After the victim had given the TT account details to the scammer, the latter withdrew all the credits, after which the victim discovered that the scammer had blocked her on QQ and she could not access her own TT account. Lou said her mother reported the case to the police on Monday following her daughter’s revelation of the missing money. The case was still under investigation at the time of yesterday afternoon’s press conference.
