A woman from the mainland was arrested on Monday for fraud and money laundering, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Siu Keong said during a special press conference yesterday.
Cheong identified the suspect as a 49-year-old female surnamed Wan who claimed to be jobless.
According to Cheong, the police received a report on September 26, 2024 from a middle-aged local woman who said that she had been scammed via a hacked messaging app account.
Cheong noted that on September 25,2024, the victim received a message from a relative from the company where both worked, saying that funds for a car purchase, which the company had decided on, needed to be urgently transferred to a bank account in Hong Kong. Since the victim had indeed discussed the car purchase with the relative, she mistakenly trusted the sender’s identity and, without verification, transferred HK$500,000 (516,000 patacas) to the designated account.
Later, when the victim called the relative to confirm, the relative told her that he or she had not requested the transfer. The police discovered that the messaging app account had been compromised, allowing the fraudster to steal conversation records and impersonate the relative, resulting in the loss of HK$500,000.
The police did not reveal the gender of the relative.
The police later identified Wan as the account holder receiving the fraudulent funds and arrested her at the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Monday. The police confirmed that Wan’s bank account had received the HK$500,000 from the victim.
Under questioning, Wan admitted to having opened five bank accounts at the request of a superior and provided the accounts’ details to that person. In return, she claimed that she was given 12,200 yuan (13,700 patacas). Cheong said that Wan claimed that she had no idea of the whereabouts of the funds.
Wan was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing charges of fraud and money laundering.
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded money laundering suspect to a PJ van outside the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday. – Photo: Ada Lei
