Hong Kong police believe they have foiled a sophisticated international telephone deception scam headed by a “Taiwanese mastermind” that’s caused a total loss of HKD189 million to their victims.
Operation WILDCRATER (yep, it was really called that) resulted in the arrests of 31 people this week; six in Hong Kong, four in mainland China and 21 in Taiwan.
The group, comprising of men and women between the ages of 22 and 51, is accused of working under a Taiwanese mastermind who recruited “stooges” in Mainland China to open bank accounts in Hong Kong.
Unsuspecting victims from Taiwan were then targeted by the telephone fraudsters, who claimed to be law enforcement officers investigating how the victims’ personal information had been used to commit crimes. The victims were then told to remit money into the Hong Kong bank accounts for “monitoring” by way of proving their innocence.
Seriously though, who would fall for that? It’s just so obviously dodgy!
During the operation, various premises in all three locations were raided, with computers, phones, ATM cards and around HKD3.2 million in cash seized. Another HKD10 million in “crime proceeds” has been frozen.
Photo: Dave Dugdale via flickr
