A 90-year-old Hong Kong lady has been conned out of US$32million by fraudsters posing as Chinese officials, police mentioned, in the city’s most significant recorded phone scam.
Hong Kong’s elderly are plagued by phone scammers who seek out vulnerable and wealthy victims prepared to transfer funds or make bogus investments.
Police on Tuesday mentioned scammers targeted an elderly lady living in a mansion on The Peak, Hong Kong’s ritziest neighbourhood.
Last summer season criminals contacted the unnamed lady pretending to be Chinese public safety officials. They claimed her identity had been made use of in a critical criminal case in mainland China.
She was told she required to transfer funds from her bank account into ones held by the investigation group for safekeeping and scrutiny, the South China Morning Post reported, citing police sources.
Police mentioned numerous days later a particular person arrived at her residence with a committed mobile phone and SIM card to communicate with the fake safety agents who persuaded her to make a total of 11 bank transfers.
Over 5 months the elderly lady gave a total of HK$250 million ($32 million) to the scammers, the biggest sum recorded however by a phone con.
Police mentioned the scam was only spotted for the reason that the elderly lady’s domestic helper believed a thing suspicious was taking place and contacted her employer’s daughter who then alerted officers.
After an investigation a 19-year-old was arrested for fraud and has been released on bail, police mentioned.
The South China Morning Post reported that the arrested particular person is believed to have been the fraudster who turned up at the lady’s residence with the phone.
Wealthy Hong Kong is one of the most unequal locations on earth.
It boasts one of the highest concentrations of billionaires, several of whom live in palatial properties overlooking densely packed districts exactly where poor households could possibly squeeze into an apartment the size of an American auto parking space.
With such a higher concentration of wealthy elderly residents, the city tends to make a ripe target for phone scammers, several of whom operate across the border in mainland China.
Police say such scams are on the rise.
Reports of phone scams rose 18 per cent in the initial quarter of 2021 with fraudsters pocketing some HK$350 million more than the period.
In 2020, police mentioned they handled 1,193 phone scam circumstances exactly where a total of HK$574 million was stolen.
Last year a 65-year-old lady was duped out of HK$68.9 million just after a equivalent scheme exactly where persons posed as mainland safety officials.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Spuzz employees and is published from a syndicated feed.)