11-year-old girl duped in fake mainland police scam

An 11-year-old girl was allegedly tricked into transferring MOP65,000 from her grandmother’s account in a scam involving fraudsters posing as mainland police officers, the Judiciary Police (PJ) said. The case is under investigation.

The girl had borrowed her grandmother’s phone to do schoolwork and chat with friends on social media when she received messages from scammers. They claimed to know she was a minor and accused her of causing MOP60,000 belonging to a company to be frozen while using the phone.

The scammers threatened that if she did not cooperate, her parents would have to pay the money or could even face imprisonment. They also claimed the incident could affect her chances of attending university.

Believing the claims, the girl followed instructions from a scammer posing as a Beijing police officer. She enabled screen sharing on the phone and provided the password used for family money transfers. Police said she knew the password because she had previously seen her grandmother use it for online shopping.

About three hours later, the grandmother retrieved her phone, discovered the transfer records and reported the case to police.

The PJ urged parents to safeguard financial information, communicate with children and teach them not to trust strangers they meet online.