Hong Kong is seeing an explosion in telephone and internet scams where criminals pose as local or Chinese officials to demand victims hand over money, police said Wednesday.
The spike comes as an economic downturn weighs on the city and authorities crack down on dissent after huge democracy protests three years ago, fuelling a fear of officialdom.
At a briefing on Wednesday police said 956 phone scam cases were reported from January to July this year, a 60 percent increase year on year.
A total of HK$470 million ($60 million) was lost to con artists in the period.
There was an 87 percent rise in the number of ruses involving people impersonating officials, which accounted for around 60 percent of all the scams.
That method of conning was by far the most lucrative, producing 90 percent of all the losses.
“The usual tactics included establishing authority by claiming to be an official or law enforcer and demanding victims keep things to themselves in order to isolate them,” Woo Chin-pang, a police clinical psychologist, told reporters.
Though phone and internet scams have long been a problem in Hong Kong, the figures lay bare how impersonating officials can be lucrative as the city rigorously enforces pandemic rules and becomes more like the authoritarian Chinese mainland.
In a video played by police, an anonymous female victim described how she received a call from someone claiming to be an official who accused her of violating coronavirus restrictions.
“The…
