The Judiciary Police (PJ) launched yesterday an anti-fraud programme on its official WeChat account “PJ_Macao”, aiming to enhance the public’s ability to recognise fraud and to raise their fraud awareness, so as to further reduce the risk of being cheated.
The Judiciary Police held a press conference about the features, functions and operation instructions of the new programme, at their headquarters in Zape yesterday afternoon.
Telecom fraud, in recent years, has become a type of crime of great concern to not only Macau but also all over the world, resulting in a crime phenomenon that the world must face together, PJ Director Sit Chong Meng pointed out in his opening remarks at the press conference, adding that in 2023 alone the Judiciary Police filed 407, 871 and 329 cases of phone, cyber and credit card fraud, representing year-on-year increases of 263 percent, 43 percent and 89 percent respectively compared to 2022, totalling losses of more than 300 million patacas.
Sit pointed out that according to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), total telecom fraud losses worldwide exceeded eight trillion patacas between August 2022 and August 2023, an 18-fold year-on-year increase, while in terms of Macau’s neighbouring regions, Hong Kong received reports of losses of more than 9.2 billion patacas caused by telecom fraud last year, while in Singapore the corresponding figure amounted to four billion patacas.
Telecom fraud is spreading
Telecom fraud continues to spread in Macau, highlighting the fact that the anti-fraud awareness of members of the public “is still weak”, said Sit, who also revealed that in the first two months of this year the number of phone, cyber and credit card fraud cases filed by the Judiciary Police stood at 81, 126 and 58 respectively, representing year-on-year growth of 108 percent, 73 percent and 123 percent compared with the same period of last year. Sit also said that there has been a high incidence of fraud derived from phishing text messages, pointing out that the Judiciary Police received reports from 65 residents in the first few days of this month, amounting to losses of nearly 800,000 patacas in total as a result of phishing scams involving fake “UnionPay” text messages. He noted that since the beginning of this year, the police have dealt with more than 200 phishing websites with the assistance of local telecom operators.
Growing fraud complexity
With the growing complexity of the fraudulent methods used by criminals, in addition to the victims’ huge pecuniary losses, the scams also cause serious psychological and spiritual damage to the victims, therefore, according to Sit, the launch of the PJ anti-fraud programme is one of the major initiatives of their anti-fraud prevention measures. He pointed out that by operating the programme on WeChat, members of the public are not required to download and install other software, obtain additional user privileges, or provide their personal information such as their mobile phone numbers, so that it does not give rise to concerns about personal privacy and the programme’s security, underlining the importance of conforming to the usage habits of Macau residents and tourists, as well as the protection of personal privacy and the programme’s security.
4 functions
According to the press conference, the new PJ programme features four functions, namely “fraud finder”, “reporting fraud tips and leads”, “knowing more about fraud”, and “fraud recognition”, which, respectively, help the public assess fraud risks of suspicious phone numbers they received, makes it easier for the public to tip off the police about suspected fraud, allows the public to learn more about the prevention of telecom fraud, and enables all users to participate in a simulated scam experience, so as to improve their ability to recognise fraud.
The fraud risks are classified as “low”, “average”, and “high”, in response to which Long Hon Wai, who heads the PJ IT Crimes Division, underlined that members of the public must always stay vigilant even though the phone numbers they entered into the programme were identified as a “low” risk index, adding that the low risk index just means that the content of the search has no relevance to the case or the report from the public at that moment of time it definitely does not mean that it is safe.
The “average” and “high” risk indices come out whenever the phone numbers members of the public have received are, respectively, close to and equal to those in PJ fraud records and, therefore, members of the public should immediately stop all their money transfers related to those phone numbers.
So far, according to the press conference, the anti-fraud programme has gathered 170,000 pieces of suspected or confirmed fraud-related data, such as phone numbers and websites, that the Judiciary Police have collected over the years, urging the public to make more use of the programme’s reporting function to assist the police in their fight against fraudsters, and to update their information about fraudulent phone numbers or websites in a timely manner.
The Judiciary Police (PJ) hold a press conference regarding the features, functions and operation instructions of their new anti-fraud programme on WeChat, at the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Yuki Lei
