Chocolate crime squad: Hong Kong police confect a new weapon in war against growing multimillion-dollar menace of online scams
- As online rackets become public enemy number one in terms of Hong Kong crime statistics, city police are trying everything to warn potential victims
- At a media briefing this week, the city’s top cop gave reporters dark and white chocolates to symbolise good and bad on the internet
The days when your average Hong Kong criminal was a gun-toting armed robber or kidnapper are long gone.
Today, the criminal out to steal your hard-earned cash is much more likely to be an innovative and manipulative confidence trickster with an untraceable digital device.
This quantum shift in the nature of crime means law enforcement also need to innovate to keep pace with what is rapidly becoming, in cash lost terms, Hong Kong’s biggest criminal menace – online scams.
Innovation of sorts was on display earlier this week when the city’s top cop, Hong Kong Police Commissioner, Raymond Siu Chak-yee, unveiled the force’s latest weapon in the war against online racketeers and fraudsters – chocolates.
At a press conference aimed at raising public awareness about online fraud, Siu handed out two chocolates, one dark and one white, in a gift-wrapped little box to members of the media.