Ten people lose over MOP4.7 million to scams

The Judiciary Police (PJ) has received reports from 10 scam victims totaling over MOP4.5 million.

Most of these scams occurred online, with victims’ losses ranging from several thousands to over two million patacas all at once.

Notable cases include one where a local fell victim to a part time scam that required her to help submit fake reviews onto websites to earn money, the PJ said in a press conference.

The victim was instructed to deposit MOP400,000 into an account and perform various tasks related to searching hotels and websites. She completed more than 30 of these tasks and wanted to quit, but the scammers told her she could receive MOP15,000 as compensation if she paid MOP146,000 first. Realizing something was wrong, the victim refused and notified the police of her losses.

Another case the PJ reported involved a local man receiving a phone call from someone claiming to be a law enforcement officer in Shanghai. Since the male victim didn’t speak Mandarin, he handed the phone to his family. The caller requested a FaceTime call for a virtual interview and appeared to be wearing a uniform resembling a law enforcement officer. Convinced of the caller’s identity, the family provided personal and bank account information, including passwords. Later, they discovered suspicious transactions from their bank accounts and reported a loss of HKD96,000 and HKD97,000 respectively.

The biggest case reported was a victim who lost RMB4.01 million.

The victim reported he wanted to use the funds for foreign exchange and received a call from what he believed to be mainland police officials. According to the victim, the caller asked why the victim had such a large amount of money in his accounts and was being suspected of fraud. The caller claimed that for the victim to prove his funds were not fraudulent, he had to transfer a total of RMB4.01 million to a designated multi-currency account to prove his innocence. Only after talking to his family members did the victim realize he had fallen victim of a scam.

The PJ stresses that knowing personal details does not mean the caller is a real officer. They urged residents to verify suspicious situations with police and practice extreme vigilance and caution to avoid these scams which are becoming more and more common.

Man arrested for damaging several cars

In a separate case, authorities have received a report of multiple vehicles being damaged, according to a spokesperson from the Public Security Police (PSP).

In a press conference, the PSP said the suspect, a 19-year-old man and former Hong Kong-Macau traffic police officer, broke into several cars in a carpark.

On the morning of May 12, at 10 a.m., the police received a report from a victim of an unidentified person in a parked car’s passenger seat. The police arrived at the scene and found that the car’s headlights on, and a man was seen moving around in the passenger seat.

While the suspect did not steal any items from the vehicle, police found that his mobile phone contained multiple photos of the interior of several other cars in the carpark. Upon identifying the owners of the cars and notifying them, some of the victims found broken car door locks. However, the suspect was adamant the car doors were all unlocked at the time, and he simply opened the door to enter the vehicles. Howard Tong