Phone scammers masquerading as officials from mainland China struck 200 times in the first half of this year, 50 times the number recorded in all of 2014.
The problem peaked last month with 167 of the 200 cases recorded, an average of about five cases a day, reports the SCMP.
And we’re pretty sure they’re all coming through to our office phone.
A total of about HKD27 million has been siphoned from 70 victims across all walks of life in Hong Kong, from businessmen to mainland students, 80 percent of whom are aged 20 to 50.
See, it’s not only grannies who get duped over the phone.
The latest scam consists of fraudsters posing as delivery staff and informing targets that a parcel they sent has been confiscated, diverting their calls to colleagues posing as mainland police officers.
Those who didn’t have the sense to hang up would then be directed to fake government websites displaying forged arrest warrants and injunctions with their photo and personal information.
The victim would be asked to make a bank transfer or pay cash in order to demonstrate their willingness to “cooperate” with the police.
Police inspector Lam Cheuk-ho said that 10 percent of the victims were targeted with information gleaned from their home return permits while they were visiting mainland China, while information on the rest of the victims was obtained through cold-calls.
So far, only one arrest has been made, with a 37-year-old man charged in connections to six of these cases.
Photo: Isaac Cheung
