Septuagenarian woman loses MOP200K to impersonator
A local woman has lost MOP200,000 to a man whom she thought she knew, who requested loans from her, the Judiciary Police (PJ) announced yesterday.
According to the police, on July 21, the female victim, 70, reported that she got a call from a man on the evening of July 19. Upon answering the call, she thought the man was an interior refurbishment worker whom she knew. The man requested to continue communicating with her over WeChat, which she accepted.
The next day, the man asked the woman on WeChat for a loan of MOP100,000. The woman said she did not have enough money and could only lend him MOP20,000. She then transferred the money to a designated bank account.
Later, the man asked for another MOP130,000 as loan, and the woman lent him MOP100,000. On July 21, the man asked for MOP130,000 and she lent him MOP80,000. Later that day, the man asked for MOP200,000, and the woman started to feel strange and called the real worker whom she knew. The worker told her that he had never added her on WeChat. Thinking that she might have been scammed, she approached the police.
In another case, two local university students in their twenties came across a post on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (The Little Red Book) that claimed to be selling tickets to the show of G Idol.
The two girls decided to buy two tickets for RMB3,500 and made the transfer on Alipay. However, the alleged seller said that they had typed the wrong information in the remark section, and asked them to make the transfer again. The alleged seller promised that they would be refunded after the second transfer.
The two girls believed this and so made another transfer. Again, the alleged seller said there was another problem with the remarks and requested another transfer. The two girls then suspected they had been scammed, so they contacted the PJ.
The Public Security Police Force (PSP) managed to apprehend a Korean man, 34, who allegedly stole a handbag from a woman in a shopping mall in the NAPE district on July 20. According to the police, the woman was working on setting up a store at the mall and placed her bag somewhere on the ground. When she finished working, she realized that the bag had disappeared. The woman said that there were HKD3,000 and MOP500 cash in the bag, as well as a pair of headphones.
After viewing surveillance camera footage, the police found a suspect and apprehended the man in the same afternoon at a shopping mall in Taipa, and seized HKD400 and MOP160 cash.
