Student reports loss of MOP3.8m in phone scam

An 18-year-old female student from the mainland has reported a loss of MOP3.8 million to a phone scam, the Judiciary Police (PJ) reported yesterday.

On the phone, criminals pretended to be workers from the police and prosecution authorities from mainland China.

On December 15, the victim received a phone call telling her she had mailed a package to Beijing, and that the Beijing police department had seized several illegal identification cards from the package. The caller then said that the victim was suspected of money laundering.

The phone call was subsequently transferred to different criminals who posed as officers from different mainland judicial authorities. The scammers told her she would need to pay a fine.

The suspect asked her father for money, lying by saying that the money was for a proof to the school.

She mailed the money to the mainland bank account provided by the criminals.

The victim reported the case to Shenzhen’s police authority and the PJ.

In addition to this victim, one local resident fell for a so-called “guess who I am” scam, while another two residents fell victim to concert ticket scams. In total, these three local residents reported a loss of MOP40,000.