A wealthy 90-year-old woman in Hong Kong was defrauded $ 32 million by criminals posing as Chinese authorities – the region’s largest recorded phone scam, according to reports.
The woman – who lives in a mansion in the upscale neighborhood known as The Peak – became the target of fraudsters claiming to be public security officials last summer, the South China Morning Post reported.
“She was told her identity was used in a serious criminal case in mainland China,” a police source told the outlet. “She was then ordered to transfer her money to designated bank accounts to investigate whether the money was the proceeds of a crime.”
The source added that the victim “was promised that all money would be returned to her after the investigation.”
A 19-year-old college student reportedly went to the woman’s home and gave her a cell phone to communicate with the scammer, the source told the Morning Post.
According to her, she transferred the massive amount to three accounts through 11 transactions between August 2020 and January 2021, police told the outlet.
One of the scammers also accompanied the woman to a bank to make one of the transactions.
Police said the scam was discovered after the victim’s housekeeper thought something suspicious was going on and contacted her employer’s daughter, who then alerted the police, Agence France-Presse reported.
According to the South China Morning Post, agents of the Kowloon East Regional Crime Unit arrested the 19-year-old last month and frozen bank accounts with more than $ 1 million.
But the phone crooks left with the rest.
Hong Kong has one of the world’s highest concentrations of billionaires, many of whom are elderly, making them vulnerable to such scams.
Phone scam reports were up 18 percent in the first quarter of 2021, with fraudsters holding in about $ 45 million during that period, AFP reported.
Last year, a 65-year-old woman was duped for $ 10 million following a similar plan involving people posing as mainland security officers, the news agency said.