FANNY W.Y. FUNGfanny.fung@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 4:39am
UPDATED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 4:39am
A 54-year-old woman lost 190,000 yuan (HK$240,451) after transferring it to a designated account. Photo: AFP
Two more Hongkongers have fallen victim to scams involving fraudsters claiming to be mainland police officers, the latest in a series of such incidents in recent months.
As in previous telephone scams, the victims received calls from people purporting to be from a mainland institution, who told them they were suspected of criminal offences.
They were then put in touch with other people posing as mainland police officers, who told them to transfer money to a specified bank account.
In one case, reported to police yesterday, a 54-year-old woman told Hong Kong police she had transferred 190,000 yuan (HK$240,451) to a designated bank account.
In another case, reported on Friday, a 37-year-old woman said she had lost 383,000 yuan after giving her mainland bank account details to the scammer.
Another case reported on Friday involved a fake postal worker, rather than a police officer. The victim, 25, transferred 120,000 yuan after being told a parcel she had mailed was suspected to contain illegal material.
The number of phone scams involving fraudsters posing as mainland officials soared to 200 in the first half of this year, 50 times the number of cases recorded in the whole of last year.
The victims were swindled out of HK$26.79 million, up from HK$900,000 last year.
Many of the cases involved fraudsters posing as officials of Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong, which has received a flood of calls in the last few days from people conned out of millions of dollars.
The office had noticed scammers using software that could fraudulently display the office's general line as the incoming number.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1843724/two-more-hong-kong-victims-hit-mainland-police-scammers
