Over MOP70 million scammed in first three quarters this year

Over MOP70 million has been reported lost in the first nine months of the year due to scams, Sit Chong Meng, director of the Judiciary Police (PJ), revealed.  

On the sidelines of a police event yesterday, Sit disclosed 84 phone scams have been reported to his bureau in the first nine months, amounting to MOP35.7 million, which the police director described as “a relatively significant increase.”

On the other hand, 62 fake personality money scams were recorded in the first nine months, which amounted to MOP37.9 million in reported losses.

Fake personality money scams, commonly referred to in Chinese as “Pig-killing Scams,” involve time for cultivation or familiarization. Scammers usually pretend to be boyfriends or girlfriends, and attempt to lure a victim to fall for their scams using romantic rhetoric and tricks. Usually, scammers impersonate middle eastern dignitaries, foreign professionals or low-profile wealthy personalities.

In addition, Sit reported the bank accounts involved are mainly located in Southeast Asian countries. Recently, however, accounts from Africa and South America have also been involved in such scams, Sit added.

He said investigations have become increasingly difficult as the geographical scope has expanded. Investigation and prevention rely primarily on the mutual policing assistance mechanism between Macau and Interpol as well as Macau and mainland police bureaus. The mechanism facilitates the exchange of intelligence as well.

Another type of scam is the fake employment scam, and the PJ director disclosed that 15 such cases had been reported this year so far. Fake employment scams work in such a way that people are baited or lured to jobs in Southeast Asian countries, where victims will work long hours per day expanding the scam network by either scamming in money or luring more people to “do the job.”

In one of the 15 cases, a local resident had been deceived and had made the trip to a foreign country, Sit disclosed. While investigations are still in progress, he confirmed the resident had returned to Macau safely.

In a similar case, three local women were persuaded to take a job in a Southeast Asian country. Fortunately, Sit explained, intelligence revealed the so-called employment scam. Authorities were able to alert the three women to the scam before they left for the fraudulent scheme.

Other cases were reported by local residents who had received referrals or information from their families, friends or coworkers. “For the time being, none of these local residents have been deceived into leaving for foreign countries,” Sit added.

Sit refrained from providing excessive information as he reiterated investigations were still in progress for most of these cases.

PJ makes mascot bee to promote anti-scam drives

Yesterday afternoon, PJ launched its anti-scam mascot, Little Anti-swindle Fairy, at a ceremony at the Macao Polytechnic University. The fairy takes the image of a bee.

In his speech, Sit said that, in response to online swindles, the PJ has implemented the strategy of simultaneous investigation and prevention, as well as continuously improving the triple response mechanism comprising prevention, recovery and hit. He stressed the PJ has different tactics for the three elements in the mechanism.

For example, he highlighted, the police have been in constant collaboration with local financial institutions in the retrieval or recovery of allegedly scammed funds. When a victim is attempting to transfer money to a suspicious account in or out of Macau, frontline staff or the online banking websites of the initiating institutions will issue warnings to remind the victim about the possibility of fraud. In other cases, victims may realize they have been swindled after making the bank wire instructions. In such a case, they can contact their banks to intercept or retrieve the wired funds.

Sit said the bank transfer retrieval or interception mechanism was introduced experimentally in August this year.

The ceremony also saw six local residents, banks or businesses receive certificates in praise of their efforts in helping to stop family members or clients from being swindled.