More than 16,500 scam cases have been recorded in the first five months this year in Hong Kong, a 46 percent increase year on year, police said on Saturday.

Of the cases, more than one fifth were related to phone scams, with the fraudsters pushing for sums amounting to HK$720 million.

Chief inspector Ho Ming-wai said the most prevalent tactic in such frauds remains masquerading as customer-service representatives from bank and telecommunications companies.

These scammers reel in victims by claiming there had been unusual activity in their accounts to trick them into providing personal information or paying processing fees, she said.

"Guess-who-I-am" scams saw a 93 percent year-on-year increase to 1,385 cases, with total losses amounting to HK$95 million.

"This means that the victim in every case we logged had suffered a loss of more than HK$60,000," Ho said.

"Apart from scammers masquerading as family members or friends to lure people into transferring money, we also noticed an increase in cases in which scammers pretended to be the victims' supervisor, coworker or even their company's business partners.

"This makes it easier for victims to fall for the scam as, in many cases, the individuals are involved in financial transactions with the aforementioned people in their work."

A targeted police operation has led to the arrest of 61 suspects connected to 54 telephone scams, which collectively defrauded victims of over HK$31 million.

Officers said they will strengthen collaboration with telecommunication service providers and step up promotional campaigns against scams.

The force also reminded students looking for summer jobs to remain cautious, the elderly to remain calm when receiving calls from strangers, and family members to keep a close eye on whether their elders are making large withdrawals from banks.



Edited by Azam Khan