Police on Thursday reported a surge in cases involving the impersonation of officials, with nearly 900 scams reported in the initial 10 months of this year, marking a 12 percent increase from the previous period. Officers said they received 874 cases that amounted to HK$1.42 billion, more than double from previous figures. Theodora Lee, the superintendent at the Anti-Deception Coordination Centre of the Commercial Crime Bureau, said that 30 percent of victims were university students, adding that scammers have adopted novel tactics to deceive people. "Scammers are getting more aggressive. In recent cases, we have seen scammers demanding students to take nude photos or videos and hide in remote areas. In one case, they even requested a victim leave Hong Kong for Thailand and cut off contact with their families," she said. "These tactics were aimed at pressuring the students' parents for more money." One victim who is a master's student in the SAR said she travelled to the mainland, and handed over 500,000 yuan in cash to the scammers, after she was informed by scammers dressed in police uniforms with identification that she was involved in a money laundering case. She was then directed to Thailand, where she was told she was prohibited from contacting anyone. She said the scammers later falsely informed her parents that she had been kidnapped and demanded a 10 million yuan ransom. She said her parents reported the incident, and she was eventually found in a Bangkok hotel. Meanwhile, officers said they received over 36,000 fraud cases from January to October this year, an increase of 2,482 cases compared with 2023.
