By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-21 07:16:33 | Updated at 2024-12-21 10:23:34
3 hours ago
Hong Kong police have arrested 154 people in a three-week crackdown on fraudsters who used internet and phone scams to cheat their victims out of more than HK$280 million.
In swoops on scamming syndicates that started on December 2 until Friday, officers detained 119 male and 35 female suspects, aged between 15 and 72, on suspicion of obtaining property by deception, money laundering and fraud offences amid a rise in phone scams since May.
The 214 victims, aged between 17 and 78, suffered losses of HK$289 million in total, with one person reporting they had lost HK$5.18 million, the force said.
Scammers posing as customer service representatives of well-known e-commerce firms, payment platforms and telecoms companies contacted victims by phone, acting superintendent Wu Hoi-ning of the Kowloon East regional headquarters said on Saturday.
“The scammers falsely claimed that victims had bought paid services that would be automatically deducted from their bank accounts or that their services were about to expire,” she said.
Wu said victims were pressured into transferring renewal fees to their designated accounts to avoid affecting their credit rating.
