Two women and a man were cheated out of 340,000 patacas in total in three separate online scams, while a local woman was swindled out of HK$1.2 million in “fake police” scams, Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman Cheong Heon Fan said during a regular press conference on Wednesday.
According to Cheong, the three victims who fell for the online investment scams are a 40-year-old woman, a man and a woman both aged 20.
According to Cheong, the 40-year-old victim was persuaded by a male “investment expert” online to invest in US dollar-to Japanese-yen trading. She was instructed to download an app and purchase virtual currency, but later reported to have lost a total of US$27,000, equivalent to approximately 220,000 patacas.
The other two victims, according to Cheong, saw on Facebook that an online shop was hiring people to “place orders”. Its purported staff members told the victims how to place an order which required an advance payment each time and promised a “commission” per order in return.
The victims then deposited money into several mainland bank accounts provided by the “customer service” and started “placing orders”. They received and withdrew their investments the first few times, but afterwards their requests to withdraw the money were refused.
They finally became suspicious and reported their losses to the police, with the man losing 7,000 patacas and the woman 118,000 patacas.
Fake police scam
In addition, a local woman and a man fell victim to a “fake police” scam and have been defrauded out of HK$1.2 million and HK$56,000 respectively, according to Cheong.
According to Cheong, the two victims are a 30-year-old local woman and a local man in his twenties.
According to Cheong, both victims received calls claiming to be from a mainland police officer.
According to Cheong, both victims were told by the scammer that they were suspected of spreading false messages about the COVID-19 pandemic and other criminal activities.
The woman was asked to transfer money during the “investigation”, to a stipulated bank account between April and May, totalling HK$1.2 million, but later was unable to get the money back. She then reported the case to the PJ.
The man, according to Cheong, only gave the “mainland police officer” his personal information but later discovered that HK$56,000 had vanished from his account, so he then reported the case to the police.
The Judiciary Police are still investigating the cases and no arrests had been made at the time of the press conference.
