Fraudsters have duped students studying abroad out of up to HK$1.5 million (US$191,531) each by accusing them of money laundering and luring them to Hong Kong to buy gold for bogus law-enforcement investigations, prompting a police warning.
At least nine victims aged between 19 and 26, who are studying in the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries, have recently fallen prey to such cross-border impersonation scams, according to Hong Kong police.
“Their losses ranged from HK$740,000 to HK$1.57 million,” the force’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre said on its website.
Police did not reveal whether the victims were mainland Chinese or Hong Kong students, but they said the scammers had disguised themselves as officers from Shanghai’s public security bureau and Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in these cases.
Posing as mainland officials, the scammers claimed the students were involved in money laundering or other criminal offences and demanded that they cooperate in investigations.
The victims were instructed to fly to Hong Kong immediately and go to jewellery stores to buy gold pellets, the centre said in its latest scam alert.
After the purchases, the scammers switched identities, posing as ICAC officers, and arranged in-person meetings with the victims in the city to collect the gold before disappearing.
The victims later realised they had been deceived and called local police.
The force stressed that no law enforcement agency in Hong Kong, on the mainland or overseas would ever instruct anyone to buy gold, hand over cash or surrender valuables for “investigative purposes”.
“Anyone claiming to be a law enforcer and requesting the in-person handover of property or unreasonable transfers is almost certainly a scammer,” police said.
The force urged the public to terminate suspicious calls immediately and verify any such claims through the ICAC’s 2526 6366 hotline or the anti-scam 18222 helpline.
Separately, the force’s cybersecurity and technology crime bureau urged the public to remain vigilant against romance-investment scams, also known as “pig-butchering”, after a 61-year-old retired man lost more than HK$2.5 million.
The victim met a “woman” on Facebook who claimed to be an information technology professional based in Taiwan.
“The pair exchanged daily messages, shared personal details, and soon addressed each other affectionately as ‘baby’,” police said.
After the relationship developed, the scammer introduced him to investment opportunities, claiming to have expertise in the United States stock market, and directed him to a bogus website.
The woman told the retiree that the site featured an analysis system powered by artificial intelligence that offered precise investment tips and “high-return, low-risk” strategies.
On her advice, the man made multiple transfers totalling more than HK$2.5 million to personal bank accounts provided by the scammer for investments.
He later realised he had been defrauded when he could no longer access the website.
In the second week of this month, police handled more than 80 reports of online investment fraud involving losses of more than HK$80 million. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
