Hong Kong police said a joint anti-scam operation with six other countries and regions has led to the arrest of more than 1,800 people, with about 340 of them in the SAR.

The force said some 2,700 officers were involved in the operation from April to May, with Hong Kong working with counterparts in Macau, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and the Maldives through a platform known as FRONTIER+.

The various scams included investment fraud, fake jobs, telephone deception cases and bogus online shopping deals.

A total of 32,607 bank accounts were frozen and approximately US$20 million in suspected fraudulent funds was intercepted.

Chief superintendent Wong Chun-yue said officers from the SAR disrupted about 830 scams, helping to identify overseas victims whose money was transferred to "stooge accounts".

"If one country has a victim and his money was sent to another jurisdiction, we are actually racing with time because the money can disappear very, very quickly," Wong said.

Aileen Yap, an assistant commissioner of police in Singapore, said she hopes more places will take part in the anti-scam collaboration efforts in future.

"With FRONTIER+, we are looking at faster, swifter action... This is a direct contact. Instead of going through an intermediary, we go directly to the jurisdiction that is involved. From there, they can help us recover the money," Yap said.

"We urge every country, every jurisdiction to set up an anti-scam centre so that we can disrupt scam operations at scale and speed."

Officers said Canada, Australia and Indonesia have also joined FRONTIER+, taking the total number of members to 10.