Hong Kong police arrest 301 in crackdown on fraudsters with HK$370 million stolen in scams
- Force rounded up 223 men and 78 women, including alleged phone and internet fraudsters and those who sold bank accounts to launder money
Hong Kong police have rounded up 301 people in a 17-day crackdown on fraud syndicates accused of using internet and phone scams to cheat local residents out of HK$370 million (US$47.4 million).
Senior Superintendent Fang Chi-kin, who heads the New Territories South crime unit, said on Wednesday that the suspects – 223 men and 78 women – included core members of the syndicates and those who sold their bank accounts to be used for collecting money from victims and laundering the proceeds.
“These account holders are significant partners of the fraud syndicates, directly participating in criminal activities and swindling hundreds of millions of hard-earned money from Hong Kong residents every year,” Fang said.
He added that their “despicable actions” deserved “strong condemnation” from society.
Fang also issued a stern warning to the account holders. He said they could not evade responsibility by claiming ignorance about how the accounts were operated and that they would face money laundering charges punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Police have frozen more than HK$3 million in bank accounts involved in the scams, but fraudsters pocketed the rest of the money – about HK$367 million.
Fang said the victims included professionals and students, warning that people from different social classes and groups could fall prey to scams.
Of the 220 cases reported to police in the New Territories South region, the biggest involved a fake-official phone scam in which a victim was cheated out of HK$79 million.
Those arrested in the operation between June 17 and Wednesday, code-named “Flatshore”, were detained on suspicion of money laundering, conspiracy to defraud and obtaining property by deception, according to the force.
They included construction workers, salespeople, waiters and unemployed people.
One of the suspects is a 23-year-old man accused of being involved in at least 80 reports of fake-official phone scams.
Superintendent Iu Wing-kan said police had contacted half of the victims, who had been swindled out of HK$17 million.
He said the investigation suggested the suspect impersonated a special agent from a mainland Chinese law enforcement agency and contacted victims in Hong Kong, instructing them to sign “confidentiality agreements” stamped with a bogus official stamp.
“The agreements and the stamp were just props used by the [alleged] fraudster to trick the victims into believing it was an official investigation,” he said.
Police said the victims realised they were cheated after they transferred money into designated bank accounts controlled by the scammers.
Iu reminded the public that mainland law enforcement agencies would not directly contact Hong Kong residents to request help in investigations.
During the operation, police also arrested two alleged key figures of an e-shopping fraud syndicate which duped residents of HK$2.3 million worth of products by using bad cheques.
According to the force, all the suspects had been released on bail pending further investigation.
Police mounted the operation in response to a significant increase in the amount of money swindled from residents through deception cases reported in the region. The amount rose to HK$640 million in the first five months of this year from HK$130 million in the same period in 2023.
Fang, the senior superintendent, urged residents to be cautious of different types of deception, stressing that police would spare no effort in combating such illegal activities.
