The police launched an anti-telephone fraud operation, detected a total of 19 cases of electronic fraud, and arrested 27 men and women on suspicion of "obtaining property by deception". , one of the victims was a 91-year-old woman who was defrauded of HK$250 million, which was the biggest loss of the "counterfeit official deception" last year.
The police investigation found that the arrested 27 people were involved in more than 7 cross-border electricity fraud syndicates.
The police discovered that the scam syndicates would use new criminal methods. In the first three months of this year, there were 55 cases of scams under the pretext of COVID-19. The scammers would accuse citizens of visiting high-risk areas, spreading the epidemic, violating epidemic prevention regulations, or illegally purchasing vaccines in the Mainland and anti-epidemic supplies, and then forwarded the call to the fake police.
The Chief Inspector of the Kowloon East Regional Crime Squad, Mo Ziwei, explained the case. , and arrested 19 men and 8 women (aged 18 to 78) in multiple districts on suspicion of "obtaining property by deception". They reported as students, waiters and unemployed, among whom 16 had criminal records.
During the operation, the police detected a total of 19 cases of deception. The investigation found that 27 persons were arrested for committing crimes from August 2020 to March this year. Among them, 12 men and 6 women were involved in 11 "pretend officials" deception cases (two were "spy agents", 16 7 men and 2 women were involved in 8 "guess who I am" cases, and 9 provided bank accounts.
The total amount of fraudulent funds involved in the case amounted to 280 million yuan.
After the police intervened, they intercepted 11 million yuan of lost money, reducing the loss of citizens.
Kowloon East Regional Crime Squad Senior Inspector Carrie Ng pointed out that "pretending to be an official" and "guess who I am" are common methods of electrical fraud.
Take the "impersonation of an official" scam as an example. Since the public does not know much about the operation of the government and law enforcement officers, the scammers will use audio recordings and real voices to pretend to be officials of public and private organizations to commit crimes.
Recently, fraudsters have often pretended to be staff of the Department of Health and the Centre for Health Protection, accusing citizens of going to high-risk areas, spreading the epidemic, violating epidemic prevention regulations, or illegally purchasing vaccines and epidemic prevention supplies in the mainland, and then forwarding their calls to fake police.
The fake police immediately took a stern attitude and claimed that the victim was wanted for "money laundering". If the victim did not cooperate with the investigation, he would be arrested in the Mainland, causing the victim to be under enormous psychological pressure and unable to think.
Fake police officers will also refer to cases involving confidentiality and ask the victim to go to a secluded place or hotel for confidential investigation by the fake police officer, or that the victim has the opportunity to be monitored and ask to buy a new phone or send an agent to deliver the phone to the victim.
Fake police officers will use social software to present fake public security documents, as well as mainland court documents containing the victim’s information, while officers in fake uniforms will make video transcripts for the victim to defraud all personal background, asset status and photos for further deception .
During this period, the swindler will ask the victim to maintain a video call for a long time, request to report the whereabouts regularly, and monitor the victim's every move to prevent the deception case from being exposed.
In the end, the scammer will ask the victim to deposit all assets, deposits and property mortgages into some safe accounts like a "vampire" on the grounds of checking assets and taking security deposits.
Victims will also be required to download fake programs or browse fake websites, enter personal information and bank online banking passwords. After the fraudsters gain account control, they will transfer all deposits and even apply for loans, causing huge losses to the victims.
Fraudsters sometimes arrange for agents to come to collect money, bring the victim to remit money or make a mortgage. The crime process ranges from a few days to a few months, but when the victim exposes the account, the account has already been cleared.
As for "guess who I am", fraudsters pretend to be the victim's children or relatives and friends to gain trust and use different excuses to request funds to be transferred to specific accounts.
Recently, a swindler pretended to be the victim's child, claiming to be arrested by the police and asking the victim to send the bail to the swindler pretending to be a friend at a designated location, some of which were even near the police station; another swindler called a company The front desk phone number falsely claimed to be the owner or manager of the company. On the grounds of paying fees or financial difficulties, he urgently asked the staff to transfer funds to a designated account. The victim usually saw his family and friends before discovering that he had been deceived.
Leung Cheuk-hee, senior inspector of the New Territories North Regional Crime Squad, pointed out that a 25-year-old female victim received a phone call recently. She believed it.
The fake police then claimed that to protect the victim, she was asked to constantly move and keep on the phone to prevent her from contacting other people.
During the transfer, a man appeared and claimed to be a law enforcement officer. He took the victim to a residence in the New Territories for a short stay, during which he asked the victim to submit an online banking password. The victim lost HK$2.3 million in just two days.
In addition, the scammers had threatened the victim to film some scenes of being imprisoned. If the victim did not cooperate, his family would also be involved in the case.
The scammers then blackmailed the victim's family with clips, claiming that they would be posted online without payment.
Fortunately, his family reported the case for help two days later. With the intervention of the police, the bank recovered 500,000 yuan of losses and stopped further losses.
Chief Inspector Mo Ziwei pointed out that in the first three months of this year, the loss of electronic fraud cases reached 130 million yuan, and a total of 339 people were deceived. In the same period last year, 200 people were defrauded of 350 million yuan. The number of scammers has risen.
Mo Ziwei continued to point out that the victims ranged in age from 14 to 94 years old.
Mo Ziwei said that seven of the 27 arrested were only 18 to 20 years old, but they provided bank accounts for 1,000 to 2,000 yuan to collect the proceeds of the crime.
Mo reminded that even if a young person provides a hukou or acts as a spy, it is also an offence.
In July 2017, a 27-year-old woman claimed to be a victim of an electrical fraud case and also received payment to serve as a spy, but was eventually charged with five counts of money laundering and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
