A young female from the Chinese mainland and a young male from Hong Kong have separately fallen victim to “fake police” scams, losing a total of HK$1.6 million (1,648,000 patacas), Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chao Teng Hin said during a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Chao, both victims are students enrolled in local education institutions. The female received a call on July 11 from someone who claimed to be a “staff member of the local Immigration Department.” The caller claimed that her phone number was being used to commit crimes in the Chinese mainland, and then transferred the call to another line. The second person impersonated a “mainland police officer” from Kunming and accused her of participating in fraud, insisting that she cooperate with the ongoing investigation into the crimes that she was allegedly involved in.
Following the caller’s instructions, the woman downloaded the “Telegram” app for video calls. During the purported “investigation,” the scammer sent her fake notices and an “arrest warrant.” The woman then transferred HK$700,000 to a designated account as a “security deposit.”
However, on September 29, when the scammer once again requested the victim to transfer HK$700,000 using the same pretext, the victim finally became suspicious and went to the PJ headquarters to report the case and seek assistance.
Meanwhile, Chao said that in the second case the young Hongkonger received a similar call on August 16, during which the caller again posed as an “immigration officer”. Using similar tactics, the scammer tricked him into transferring a total of HK$900,000 to designated accounts in two transactions. Last Wednesday, after discussing the case with family members, he realised he had been scammed and went to the PJ headquarters to seek help.
Chao noted that the scammers in both cases impersonated “immigration personnel” and transferred the call to a “mainland police officer”, requiring video calls, screen sharing and logging into bank accounts – all under the pretext of a “fund review” to lure the victims into transferring money to so-called “safe accounts.”
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chao Teng Hin looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference a the PJ headquarters in Zape. – Photo: Armindo Neves
