Crime | Phone scams 5.6 times more prevalent in 2017

The number of phone scams in 2017 was 5.6 times higher than 2016, the Judiciary Police stated yesterday during a press conference.

In 2017, 146 individual investigations were processed concerning phone scams, with total losses reported to be more than MOP40 million.

Some 59.5 percent of phone scams’ victims were women, and the most-common age demographic of victims was 25 to 34 years of age at 33.1 percent. The second highest age bracket of victims was those aged between 18 and 24 years, at 30.4 percent.

Moreover, 72.3 percent of victims were Macau residents, 17.6 percent were from mainland China, 2 percent were from Hong Kong, 2 percent were from Taiwan, 3.4 percent were from Vietnam, 2 percent were from Malaysia, and 0.7 percent were from Portugal.

In 81.5 percent of all phone scams (119 cases), criminals pretended to be from governmental departments. Some 63.9 percent of victims falling for this type of scam were currently-employed young people and 27.7 percent were students (of which 87.9 percent were university bachelor students, 6.1 percent were secondary school students, and 6.1 percent were postgraduate students).

“Honestly, I am really concerned,” admitted Sit Chong Meng, acting director of the Judiciary Police (PJ), when talking about the increase in the number of phone scam victims. 

Regarding gaming-related crimes, 4,714 cases were filed in 2017, representing a 2.4 percent growth year-on-year.

The number of usury and illegal imprisonment cases decreased by 3 and 7.8 percent respectively.

More gambling related criminals (2,171 suspects, 8.4 percent increase) were forwarded to the Prosecution Office in 2017 than in 2016. Indeed, in 2017, the PJ initiated more procedures for all types of criminal cases, an increase of 2.34 percent year-on-year.

In total, 12,629 cases were filed in 2017, while in 2016 the number was 12,340. More than 12,000 of all the cases of 2017 have already been concluded, whereas the number of concluded cases in 2016 was 11,713 at the same time last year (a 3.63 percent increase).

Some 3,925 suspects were sent to the prosecution authority, representing a 3.1 percent growth (an increase of 120).

In 2017, 181 criminals of non-Chinese nationality were transferred to the prosecution office, which represents 14.6 percent less than in 2016. However, an additional 2.3 percent of mainland Chinese criminals were sent to the prosecution authority.

Filipinos, Vietnamese and Malaysians were the top three foreign criminal nationalities that were detained.

Computer crimes decreased 5.8 percent year-on-year, with 439 cases recorded.

Juvenile crime continued to decrease, with seven cases recorded in 2017, one case less than in 2016, and 14 less than in 2015.
21 blackmailing cases related to nude images were registered in 2017, 28 less than in 2016.

In 2017, the price for smuggling a person to Macau was between MOP20,000 and MOP25,000, whereas in 2015, it was around MOP4,000. That means the difficulty for a criminal to smuggle people into Macau has been exacerbated,” said Sit, when discussing the decrease in the number of smugglers.  JZ