The Public Security Police (PSP) has reported a total of seven cases of financial fraud in a joint police press conference yesterday.
In first case, a local woman in her 30s reported to police that she lost a total of MOP300,000 after meeting the suspect in an online social media platform on June 9, and then becoming infatuated with the suspect. The suspect introduced the victim to an online investment platform, who, on the suspect’s instructions, opened a personal investment account.
From June 9 to August 1, the victim made five transfers totaling MOP300,000 to various bank accounts in order to recharge her online investment account.
In due course, the victim found that her account balance in the online platform amounted to MOP430,000.
The victim successfully withdrew MOP18,000 in profit and continued to invest.
On August 4, the victim attempted to withdraw all of the money (both investment principle and profit) from her investment account, but the customer service of the online investment platform informed the victim that she couldn’t withdraw all of the money because the term of her deposit had not yet elapsed.
The victim tried to contact the suspect immediately, but received no reply.
In the second case, two female victims lost a total of RMB790.
On August 3, the suspect published a post in a class WeChat group for a primary school in which the suspect impersonated a school teacher. The post required each parent to pay a total of RMB395 to the suspect through the red packet function in WeChat to cover the cost of purchasing textbooks for the class.
The two victims believed that the suspect was the genuine class teacher and each transferred RMB395 to the suspect.
After 30 minutes, the real teacher clarified on the WeChat group that they had not published any post requiring parents to transfer money to buy textbooks.
The two victims realized that they had been defrauded and reported the case to the police.
As for how the suspect entered the WeChat group, the police said they are investigating the circumstances.
Another five people have been victims of credit card fraud.
The first victim is a man who received a message from his bank on August 4 saying that he had spent over MOP1,600 in a certain store. The victim had made no such purchases and suspected that his credit card was stolen.
The second victim is a man who noticed on August 6 that MOP9,700 from his account had been spent on Apple.
The third victim received six messages on August 7, that that they had been cheated of over MOP800; while the fourth and fifth victims noticed that they had been defrauded of over MOP5,600 and MOP700 respectively.
The PSP said that these five credit card theft cases are currently being investigated.
Staff reporter
