An 81-year-old woman lost 3.8 million "spies" to an electric shock

Fake official phone scams are not uncommon in Hong Kong and drifting Hong Kong students are often recruited. Earlier this month, a mainland university student who had just arrived in Hong Kong for further study received a fake call from the Department of Health, accusing him of violating epidemic prevention measures, and then forwarded her to a police officer who claimed to be a mainland police. official. The scammer asked him to provide bank details and, as a “spy”, assisted her mother-in-law, also accused of being involved in criminal proceedings, in the purchase of a telephone. The mainland student later felt different, so she sought help in the “Hong Kong Drift Reporting Room WeChat Group” set up by the police and eventually successfully prevented the group from defrauding her mother-in-law’s account. 3.8 million yuan.

Photo: Zhong Shiming

In the first half of this year, the police received a total of 786 telephone fraud cases, totaling 404 million yuan, including 183 cases of epidemic-related telephone fraud, such as impersonating the Department of Health and being accused of violating anti-epidemic guidelines, resulting in a loss of approximately 194 million yuan. Police pointed out that scammers often impersonate the Department of Health and use various excuses to falsely claim that victims are involved in different types of criminal proceedings, such as violating epidemic guidelines, illegal transport of the virus, etc. The scammer then forwarded the call to another scammer posing as a police officer, falsely claiming that the victim had committed a money laundering offense on the mainland and had to deliver a “guarantee” to clear the suspect.

Due to the lack of anti-fraud information, Xiao Pan, a university student from mainland China, almost fell into the trap: he came to Hong Kong to study in August this year. In early September, he got a fake call from the Department. della Salute which began with “+852”, saying he had traveled to high-risk areas and needed to be quarantined. On the 7th, after denying him, the scammers falsely claimed that his identity had been stolen or that his identity had been stolen, and public security must investigate and issue a certificate to exempt him from quarantine. The call was then forwarded to the “Guangdong Provincial Police”. Xiao Pan handed over his personal and banking information as requested by the scammers: “At the time I didn’t have much money in my account and I had just paid my college tuition, so the fake police asked me to be a ‘spy’ for them and he said to me, “This is a spy.” He works for the country.

On the other hand, 81-year-old mother-in-law Chen was similarly manipulated by the same scam group in late June, and threatened her not to speak, otherwise “the consequences will be at your own risk”. The scammer then asked her to buy a brand new phone to facilitate contact and for investigation and confidentiality purposes. As Grandma Chen did not know how to buy, the scammer sent a “spy” Xiao Pan to take her mother-in-law to Mong Kok to buy it on September 8th. new phone.

However, Xiao Pan “was not feeling well” after buying the cell phone and told Xiao Wei, a college classmate who is also a hobo from Hong Kong, that he was suspected of being a scam, so he asked for help. to the police in the “Hong Kong drift report room group WeChat”, and finally that same night police officers find Xiao Pan and grandmother Chen and take them to the Kwun Tong police station to report the crime. Tsang Ziyang, a police officer from the Crime Prevention Unit in Eastern Kowloon who helped the two people report the case, said that since Grandma Chen had disclosed her banking information to the scammers, she was fortunately stop in time to keep his deposit of approximately HK $ 3.8 million.

The “Hong Kong Drift Report Room WeChat Group” of the Kowloon East Regional Crime Prevention Office was officially launched in December last year, is operational 24 hours a day and has more than 1,800 mainland student members. As of yesterday, the police have received around 800 requests related to electrical scams and successfully intercepted 5 suspected electrical scams involving approximately 8 million Hong Kong dollars, with no losses for the 5 victims. The police hope to create a WeChat group to improve the information flow of the mainland student group. They all remind each other that they plan to expand similar platforms to other groups in the future to protect citizen property.