Over 3,500 investment scams received in first three quarters of 2023

A total of 3,523 online investment scams were reported to the police in the first three quarters of 2023, with losses amounting to more than HK$2.13 billion. That included a 70-year-old woman losing HK$27 million in retirement savings and a 13-year-old girl losing some HK$4,000 in pocket money. 

Both the numbers of scams and losses reached a record high, jumping 1.6 times and 2.2 times respectively when compared to the same period last year. 

According to superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching from police’s Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau, nearly 60 percent of the scams involved local or overseas securities, while some 30 percent involved cryptocurrency. 

The fraudsters usually meet the victims through random messaging, Chan said. Sixty percent of victims were approached by fraudsters on WhatsApp and 20 percent joined investment groups via scam advertisements on Facebook. 

“Most of the victims were persuaded to participate in some investment schemes that never existed,” Chan said. 

He also said fraudsters would open social media pages under the guise of public figures, politicians, investment experts, artistes, and influencers. They would display advertisements and claim to have some inside tips, he added. 

“At the beginning the victims would receive little rewards. As they wanted to cash out after depositing a significant amount of money, the false trading platform staffers would continue to ask victims to pay expensive service fees, taxes, fines or even unsettled late payment due to system malfunction. 

“The victims ended up losing dearly,” Chan noted. 

One case with the largest loss saw a 70-year-old woman being swindled out of HK$27 million by a man who claimed to be serving in the People’s Liberation Army stationed in Hong Kong between last November and this June. 

During the course she gained HK$1,000 in reward but was turned down when she requested to withdraw her capital. She then told her son and reported the case to the police. 

The youngest victim was a 13-year-old girl. She met a so-called investment expert on social media this August and invested in a so-called high profit scheme. She wired HK$4,540 to the fraudster in five transactions on an e-payment platform and later lost contact with the fraudster. 

She then told her parents and they headed to a police station to file a report. 

Police called on citizens to assess the investment risk by checking the background information of the social media pages. The public can also check if the security of the companies are licensed by looking up the registry of the Securities and Futures Commission.