Hong Kong has logged fewer phone scam cases in the first quarter of 2024 but losses soared to HK$789 million, with mainland Chinese students in the city being increasingly targeted by swindlers, police have said.
The force said they recorded 474 phone scam cases in the first three months of this year – a 21 per cent drop year-on-year, according to local media reports on Monday. But losses almost quadrupled, with cases of scammers pretending to be officials accounting for HK$764 million, or 97 per cent, of the amount lost in the period.
More mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong were conned by calls from fake immigration officers with 23 cases in April, exceeding the monthly average of 13 cases last year, said Senior Inspector Lam Pui-hang of the police’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre (ADCC) during a press conference.
A university student from the mainland, only identified as “Chen” during the press conference, was one of the recent victims.
Chen said she received a call from a self-proclaimed immigration officer last month, who accused her of publishing “lewd” content in breach of local legislation. She said she was then transferred to a self-proclaimed public security officer in the mainland, who accused her of money laundering.
“He added that, if I told others, I would be accused of disclosing a secret,” she said in Putonghua. “The name of the [security officer] was real… the orders for my arrest and my assets to be frozen were handed down with my personal information on them, which convinced me at the time.”
The university student logged into a website sent by the swindlers and entered her banking credentials, adding that HK$800,000 was remitted without her consent. When the scammers sought to withdraw another HK$700,000, the bank was able to intervene and halt another payment, she added.
‘Brainwashed’
Chen added that she was “brainwashed” by the scammers into not believing local law enforcement officers.
“When the police found me, I thought [they] were fake instead,” she said, adding that she only realised she fell victim to scammers after the police had reached her parents.
Senior Inspector Lam said scammers were targeting mainland students, who were less familiar with local regulations and were more prone to psychological manipulation in a new environment.
“Mainland students who come to Hong Kong for their education often find the environment unfamiliar… Scammers use that to their advantage, making [them] worried about whether they had committed an offence in Hong Kong,” Lam told reporters in Cantonese.
Lam added that law enforcement departments in the mainland would not contact city residents by phone under any circumstances.
He said the police’s ADCC had set up an official account on China’s Instagram-like Xiaohongshu to raise awareness of scams among prospective mainland students and their parents.
According to official figures, the police recorded 3,212 phone scam cases in 2023, marking a 13.5 per cent increase from 2022.
The continued upsurge came despite the implementation of a real-name SIM card registration system last February requiring users to register their full name, date of birth, and identity card to access telecommunications services in Hong Kong. Officials said it would reduce phone scams, though a mainland official later said it was a national security move.
Additional reporting: James Lee
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