Fraud cases in Hong Kong fell by 2.9 percent last year

In the annual review press conference today, Commissioner of Police Joe Chow said fraud cases in Hong Kong fell by 2.9 percent last year, marking its first annual decline since 2019.

Yet, online investment scams surged nearly 60 percent, with losses hitting 3.58 billion dollars.

The Police Force reported that the overall number of crime cases in Hong Kong dropped by 6 percent to some 89,000 cases last year.

Most categories of crimes saw a significant decrease.

Burglaries plummeted by 33 percent, while robberies fell by 26 percent, reaching its lowest levels since records began in 1969.

Fraud cases were down for the first time since 2019, but they still made up nearly half of all crimes last year.

Online shopping scams accounted for nearly 30 percent of all scam cases, rising 8.2 percent year-on-year, which is partly due to a sharp rise in concert ticket scams.

Meanwhile, investment scams caused the heaviest losses, involving over 3.5 billion dollars from victims.

A particularly concerning trend involved mainland students.

Last year, the number of investment scam cases involving this group surged by 3.6 times.

JOE CHOW, Commissioner of Police said, "Perpetrators tried to approach victims through some popular social media platforms, namely Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram. They are all from the same company namely Meta. We have some liaison with the company based in Hong Kong and are trying to promote the importance of social responsibility to see if they could apply some AI-driven technology to early detect those users, websites or chat groups that are apparently related to scams."

Separately, as of the end of last year, the National Security Department arrested 385 people, with more than half already facing prosecution.

Chow noted that while the National Security Law has restored order, the city should remain vigilant against lingering risks.