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Fraud accounted for half of all reported crime in Hong Kong for the first time, with more than 29,000 scam cases recorded in the first eight months of the year, Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming said.
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The police chief also said August alone recorded a monthly high of 5,189 fraud cases.
Total losses from scams reached HK$5.2 billion during the first eight months, with both the number of cases and financial losses rising from the same period last year.
Chow said telephone scams were the largest category, accounting for 27 percent of all fraud cases.
Investment scams caused the greatest financial losses, totaling HK$2.33 billion, or nearly half of the overall amount lost to fraud.
Cases involving scammers impersonating customer service representatives also doubled from the same period last year.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority deputy chief executive Arthur Yuen Kwok-hang said the losses recorded in the first eight months were equivalent to victims losing about HK$15,000 to scams every minute.
Yuen said common scams involved fraudulent investment schemes, intimidation and romance scams.
He urged members of the public to remain calm when receiving suspicious calls and to contact their banks or law enforcement agencies immediately if they were in doubt.
