The day before yesterday (16th) and yesterday (17th), law enforcement authorities targeted a cross-border criminal group through intelligence analysis. They suspected that the group hired mainlanders to come to Hong Kong as visitors to open online banking accounts to receive and transfer various scams. of fraudulent money. After investigation, officers arrested six men (aged 22 to 45), including a 32-year-old Hong Kong man, for "conspiracy to commit money laundering."
Investigators said that law enforcement agencies have noticed an increase in job search scams and fake customer service scams in recent years. So far this year, the department has recorded a total of 2,972 job search scams and 4,515 fake customer service scams, with losses as high as 1.4 billion. Hong Kong dollar. Officers explained that scammers usually use the phone or social platforms to contact victims, and then use different excuses to persuade them to transfer funds to online banking accounts held by mainlanders. Once they succeed, they are nowhere to be found.
After in-depth investigation and analysis, the law enforcement agencies found that the group used "board and lodging included" and "quick money" as solicitations, hiring mainlanders to open multiple online banking accounts in Hong Kong, and at the same time arranging hotel accommodation for them, and providing them with Manipulate relevant accounts within the organization to receive and transfer the criminal proceeds of various types of fraud.
At about 10 o'clock yesterday morning, the police took action and arrested a Hong Kong man and five mainland men. They also seized multiple mobile phones from the arrested persons and from the hotel room. The arrested person is suspected of assisting five other people in opening accounts in a hotel room in Mong Kok District between the 11th and 17th of this month for the purpose of money laundering. So far, the department has discovered that at least 15 accounts have been used to collect funds from 12 fraud cases, including impersonating official fraud, telephone fraud, investment fraud, etc. In just a few days, these accounts have collected more than HK$3 million was defrauded. The single fraud case with the highest loss involved HK$2.77 million. The victim accidentally fell into an investment scam and incurred losses.
After the operation, law enforcement agencies also received assistance from the banking industry in investigating the accounts of the arrested persons, and were able to proactively contact some victims to reduce their losses in a timely manner. The police will continue to investigate the case in various aspects.
In addition, as of November this year, more than 9,000 people have been arrested on suspicion of "money laundering", of which more than 7,000 are puppet account holders, accounting for 75% of the total; since October last year, 45 people have been arrested for renting Those who sell their accounts or sell their accounts will be sentenced to an additional sentence, and the prison term will be increased by about 3 months to 13 months respectively.
Original URL：on.cc
