A university student from the mainland, as well as a local man and a local woman who are siblings have separately been defrauded out of four million yuan and HK$193,000 in fake police scams, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Leng Kam Lon said yesterday during a regular press conference.
In the first case, the victim received a phone call from someone claiming to be a logistics company staff member, telling her that her parcel contained illegal items and had been confiscated. The call was then transferred to a man claiming to be a mainland police officer, who demanded a Skype call and later an “asset review” from the victim.
Believing the story, the victim transferred 2.51 million yuan to multiple bank accounts provided by the scammer. Subsequently, the scammer contacted the victim again, claiming that she needed to deposit two million yuan to prove she had sufficient funds so as to prove that there was no financial incentive for her to scam others. The victim told the scammer that she didn’t have enough money and instead deposited 1.5 million yuan.
The victim eventually shared the incident with her family, who advised her to report the case to the police. She told the police that the four million yuan was given to her by her parents for “international exchange” purposes.
In the second case, a local man on Saturday received a phone call from a purported mainland police officer. As the man couldn’t understand Putonghua, he passed the phone to his sister, who spoke with the scammer. The scammer then demanded a video call.
During the video call, the fake police officer told them that the male victim was involved in fraudulent activities in the mainland and convinced the man and his sister, who, the scammer claimed, was aware of the “fraud”, so they both needed to provide their bank information for an “asset review”, which they did. Later, they discovered that HK$96,000 and HK$97,000 had been transferred from their respective bank accounts without their consent, after which they reported the case to the police.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Leng Kam Long looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference.
– Photo: William Chan
