A local female senior citizen has fallen victim to a “fake police” scam, in which the scammers, one purporting to be a police officer from the mainland, instructed the victim to stay in a guesthouse in Taipa for about 20 days for the process of transferring HK$1.42 million from her local bank account to a designated Hong Kong bank account as “bail money”, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Leng Kam Lon said yesterday.
According to yesterday’s regular press conference, the victim reported her case to the Judiciary Police on Tuesday, saying that she received a call on June 18 on her mobile phone from a Putonghua-speaking man who claimed to be a staff member of a mainland bank requesting her to undergo an investigation in the mainland as “her Home Visit Permit was used to defraud another person out of five million yuan, which had led to that person’s suicide”. The victim added that the call was then transferred to another man claiming to be a police officer after she told the “bank staff” that she was unable to travel to the mainland.
Leng noted that as the “police officer” was able to tell the victim her name, Home Visit Permit number and phone number, she was convinced of the identity of the “officer”, staying in a guesthouse in Taipa alone as instructed, during which the victim transferred, on July 9, HK$1.42 million from her local bank account into her Hong Kong bank account and gave the “officer” the Hong Kong bank account’s transaction password, in order to obtain “bail pending trial”. She left the guesthouse on July 11.
On Tuesday, the victim received a call from the bank in Hong Kong which had earlier received the transfer of HK$1.42 million, requesting proof of the source of the transfer and an explanation of the reason for the transfer. After explaining the case to the bank, she talked to her family members about the incident, and only then realised that she had been defrauded. She reported the case to the Judiciary Police later that day.
