A local woman in her thirties fell victim to a “fake police” scam and was defrauded out of 202,000 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said at a regular press conference on Monday.
According to Chan, the woman received a call last Tuesday from a man claiming that he was a police officer from the Dongcheng district of Beijing. The “police officer” told the woman that her personal information had been stolen, Chan said, adding that a phone number registered in her name had been spreading “fake pandemic information” and other illegal activities since early July.
Chan said that the call was then transferred to another “police officer”, who requested her to download an app and fill in her ID number and bank account details. According to Chan, the woman followed the scammer’s instructions and soon after the call she discovered that 70,000 patacas and 132,000 patacas from two of her bank accounts had vanished.
Chan noted that the victim then turned to her husband for more money after the “police officer” urged her to deposit more money into her bank accounts. Her husband immediately told her about fraudsters’ tactics. Finally realising that she had been scammed, the victim called the police for assistance, saying that she had been scammed out of 202,000 patacas, Chan said.
