Commissioner of Police Joe Chow said deception cases in Hong Kong dropped last year for the first time since 2019.

The number of cases stood at 43,212, down 2.9 percent from 2024.

Chow also said the total number of crime cases in 2025 topped 89,000, a decrease of 5.9 percent year on year.

The police chief told lawmakers that losses in deception cases reached HK$8.1 billion last year.

About a third of the cases were related to online transactions, Chow said, and there was a significant rise in ticket scams following the opening of the Kai Tak Sports Park.

Investment-related scams, meanwhile, jumped 30 percent last year, involving nearly HK$3.6 billion, up 60 percent from 2024.

Chow said police are focusing their prevention and promotion efforts on investment scams on the internet.

"It's not just mainland students [falling victim to scams]. For the general public, the total amount of money lost due to online investment scams was the most among all kinds of deception cases," he said during a Legco security panel meeting.

The police commissioner also said there were more than 8,800 cases of violent crime, which fell by nearly 16 percent from 2024.

The most serious crimes recorded a drop, such as rape, wounding and triad-related cases, but murder and serious drugs cases went up.

On national security cases, Chow said since the National Security Law took effect in 2020, officers had arrested 385 people until the end of last year, with more than half of them prosecuted.

He said the force will continue to resolutely enforce the law and take measures against those who attempt to endanger national security.