A 90-year-old Hong Konger has been conned out of US$32 million by fraudsters posing as Chinese officials, police said, in the territory’s biggest recorded telephone scam.
Hong Kong’s elderly are plagued by phone scammers who seek out vulnerable and wealthy victims willing to transfer money or make bogus investments.
Police on Tuesday said that scammers in the summer last year targeted the woman, who lives in a mansion on The Peak, Hong Kong’s ritziest neighborhood.
They contacted the unnamed woman pretending to be Chinese public security officials, saying that her identity had been used in a serious criminal case in mainland China.
She was allegedly told that she needed to transfer money from her bank account to ones held by an investigation team for safekeeping and scrutiny, the South China Morning Post reported, citing police sources.
Police said that several days later, a person arrived at her house with a dedicated mobile phone and SIM card to communicate with the fake security agents, who persuaded her to make a total of 11 bank transfers.
Over five months, the woman gave a total of HK$250 million (US$32.2 million) to the scammers, the largest sum recorded yet by a phone con in Hong Kong.
Police said that the scam was only spotted because the woman’s domestic helper thought that something suspicious was happening and contacted her employer’s daughter, who then alerted officers.
After an investigation, a 19-year-old was arrested over fraud allegations and has been released on bail, police said.
The South China Morning Post reported that the arrested person is believed to have been the fraudster who turned up at the woman’s house with the phone.
Wealthy Hong Kong is one of the most unequal places on Earth. It boasts one of the highest concentrations of billionaires, many of whom live in palatial homes overlooking densely packed districts where poorer families might squeeze into an apartment the size of a vehicle parking space.
With such a high concentration of wealthy elderly residents, the territory makes a ripe target for phone scammers, many of whom operate across the border in mainland China.
Police said that such scams are on the rise.
Reports of phone scams rose 18 percent in the first quarter, with fraudsters pocketing about HK$350 million.
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