A 15-year-old girl has been arrested by police on suspicion of involvement in seven “guess who I am” style phone scams, which swindled HK$1.75 million out of victims, mostly elderly people living alone.
Police said on Tuesday that they arrested the girl in Nga Tau Kok after a bank staffer alerted the force that an 81-year-old man sought to withdraw money, saying that a call told him his family member had been arrested and he was required to pay the bail.
The girl was believed to have been recruited by fraudsters via social media platform Instagram and was only told to receive the money, police said after an investigation.
But the girl was also suspected to be involved in six other similar scams in March, with victims aged between 66 to 87, mostly living alone across the city, police inspector Yiu Wing-lui told reporters on Tuesday.
The largest loss – involving HK$1.26 million – was suffered by an 81-year-old woman, who also received a call claiming that her son had been arrested and a sum of money was needed for bail, the inspector added.
Police said the girl was held for allegedly obtaining property by deception, punishable by up to 10 years in jail, and that further arrests could be made.
Surge in fraud
Fraudsters have been using social media platforms and friendship networks to recruit youngsters to receive money in person, after scamming elderly people by phone, police chief inspector Lau Wing-kwan said on Tuesday. The youngsters received compensation ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, he added.
Hong Kong logged over 90,000 reported crime cases in 2023 – a 28.9 per cent increase from a year earlier. The rise was led by a surge in fraud-related offences and violent crime, according to police data.
Fraud cases shot up to nearly 40,000 last year – a 42.6 per cent annual increase – and has been the major cause for the upward trend in overall crime, said Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu in February.
Authorities have urged residents to stay alert regarding possible phone and online scams, as well as asked to install the force’s Scameter+ app, which allows users to search phone numbers, websites, bank account numbers and other information to see if they have been connected to any past fraud incidents.
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