Investment scams most common way victims defrauded during first quarter of the year

The police announced on Monday that they had detected nearly four fraud cases involving losses exceeding HK$1 million daily in the first quarter of the year alone.

This came after the announcement of data on fraud cases with losses exceeding HK$ 1 million in the first quarter of this year today, discovering there were at least four cases of scams that caused nearly $1 million in losses daily.

The top three most commonly reported scams were still investment, telephone, and employment scams.

In the scams, the perpetrators commonly used the following methods: introducing the target to a social media group and inducing them into buying cryptocurrencies, using sweet talk to make them fall into a trap, impersonating prominent security officials and saying that they were involved in money laundering schemes to make them hand over their bank details, among others.

The police spokesman urged citizens to think before transferring money, saying that if they are suspicious of fraud, they should call the ADCC hotline at 18222 or use the police cyberdefender website to note scams and internet traps.

In addition, the police also urged the public to follow the CyberDefender WhatsApp channel to receive new information swiftly.