A university professor accidentally fell into the scam of fake officials and was defrauded of a huge sum of 3.84 million yuan.
On October 1, the police received a report from a 62-year-old man surnamed Chen local, referring to a call from a fraudster claiming to be a government department officer earlier, claiming that he was involved in a criminal case and asking the victim to pay a total of about 3.84 million yuan. Deposit to the account designated by the other party.
The victim suspected of being deceived and called the police for help.
Officers arrived at the scene. After preliminary investigation, the case was classified as obtaining property by deception. The case was handed over to the first team of the Criminal Investigation Team of the Shatin Police District for follow-up. No arrests have been made so far.
It is understood that the victim, surnamed Chen (62 years old), is a university professor.
On July 5 this year, he received a call on his mobile phone. The caller claimed to be an employee of the Department of Health, falsely claiming that he violated the quarantine regulations of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, and that someone would contact him later for further enquiries.
On the same day, another scammer called the victim via Whatsapp, claiming that he was involved in a mainland money laundering case, and asked him to hand over his personal information and address.
The victim believed it to be true and handed over the information.
About two weeks later, the scammer contacted him again via Whatsapp and instructed him to hand over his Bank of China account information to prove his innocence.
The victim was not aware of the suspicious at the time, and within five days, a total of about HK$1.84 million was transferred to two local banks.
As of August 1, the scammer asked him to deposit 2 million Hong Kong dollars into his bank account as a guarantee fee. The victim did not have enough funds, so he borrowed money from Bank of China as instructed by the scammer and transferred it to a local bank account.
It was not until the Bank of China staff found out that there was an abnormal transaction in the victim's account, suspected that someone had been deceived, and notified the victim, and the victim called the police for help.
The police reiterate that anyone who commits the crime of "obtaining property by deception" under Section 12 of the Theft Ordinance, Chapter 210 of the Laws of Hong Kong, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The public should not try the law.
