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Duped Hongkongers hand over HK$27m after scam phone calls by fake mainland Chinese officials
Professionals and businesspeople among those to hand over HK$27m to people posing as mainland officials in first six months of the year after just four similar cases last year
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 15 July, 2015, 3:14am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 15 July, 2015, 9:28am
Samuel Chan [email protected]
Duped Hongkongers hand over HK$27m after scam phone calls by fake mainland Chinese officials
The number of phone scams involving fraudsters posing as mainland Chinese officials soared to 200 in the first half of the year, 50 times the number of cases recorded in the whole of last year.
And the victims - who have been swindled out of some HK$26.79 million - included professionals and businesspeople, as well as mainlanders studying in Hong Kong, defying the stereotype that naïve elderly people are most at risk from such scams.
Some 80 per cent of the 70 victims affected were aged between 20 and 50.
The problem reached a peak last month, when 167 cases were recorded - an average of five a day.
The four similar scams reported to police last year generated just HK$900,000
Chief Inspector Lam Cheuk-ho said about 10 per cent of the victims were targeted based on information found on their home return permits - the documents Hong Kong and Macau residents must present when visiting the mainland.
Fraudsters are thought to have gleaned information on the rest of the victims by cold-calling.
The details were "used to forge legal documents, including arrest warrants and injunctions," Lam said.
In the case of the home return permit, Lam said the people targeted had "made transactions on the mainland recently".
Many of them had been to Guangdong province staying at hotels and patronising some entertainment venues where home return permits must be presented.
The latest scam involves fraudsters based outside the city posing as delivery company staff and telling targets a parcel they sent had been confiscated.
They then offered to divert the call to colleagues posing as mainland police officers.
In an attempt to add credibility, those who did not hang up would be directed to fake government websites showing forged arrest warrants or injunctions containing their photo and other personal information.
They would then be instructed to make bank transfers or pay cash face-to-face to prove their "willingness to cooperate with police".
One South China Morning Post reporter who had been on work trips to Guizhou province and Beijing in May had since experienced repeated calls from a purported representative of an established delivery company founded on the mainland.
So far, police have charged one 37-year-old local man in connection with six such cases.
The suspect was allegedly posing as a Hong Kong policeman to collect money from victims in person. He is also suspected of forging legal documents.
Asked whether mainland authorities had agreed to crack down on data leaks at venues such as hotels, Lam said talk of firm action was "too far off at this stage", before adding that the force regularly exchanged intelligence with its counterparts on the mainland.
Investigations so far did not indicate that a large-scale syndicate was behind the scams, he added.
The overall number of phone scams reported in the first half of the year was up 16.3 per cent on the same period last year to 1,370 cases, involving HK$46.56 million. Police reminded people of all backgrounds and ages to stay vigilant, and said mainland police would not demand money from suspects, nor would delivery companies divert calls directly to police.
