Mega scam for elderly woman in Hong Kong: more than $ 32 million stolen thanks to phone hoax

Crooks pretending to be Chinese security guards some $ 32.7 million was stolen from a 90-year-old Hong Kong woman in a phone scam, in what is considered the biggest theft of its kind in the former British colony.

In Hong Kong, the elderly are often targeted by crooks who take advantage of their vulnerability and lead them into making bank transfers or making questionable investments.

On this occasion, the victim was a nonagenarian who lives in Peak, the most exclusive area of ​​town, located in one of the mountains on Hong Kong Island, police said on Tuesday.

Scammers contacted the victim last summer posing as heads of the Chinese security services, assuring him that his identity had been used fraudulently in a criminal case in mainland China.

They asked him what he owed make bank transfers to the accounts of suspected investigators, to protect your fortune and to investigate, reports the newspaper Morning Message from South China citing police sources.

Police said several days later someone showed up at the victim’s home to give him a phone number and card with which he was to contact the alleged security guards who they convinced her to make 11 bank transfers.

Over a period of five months, the victim transferred a total of 250 million Hong Kong dollars ($ 32.7 million), the highest sum taken in Hong Kong by telephone scam.

Police said the theft was discovered after the maid of the nonagenarian contacted her daughter to inform her of her suspicions.

19-year-old man arrested for fraud and released on bail, police said. It would be the person who gave the phone to the old woman.

Hong Kong police said phone scams, often carried out from mainland China, are on the rise. Reports of such cases increased by 18% in the first quarter of 2021.

(With information from AFP)

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