22 Arrested Over Low-interest Loan Scam

The police on Saturday said they have arrested 22 people related to a scam syndicate that pretended to offer low-interest loans.

At an online press briefing, the force said the syndicate is suspected of swindling seven victims out of a total of HK$1.9 million.

It said investigations showed that syndicate members would cold call people claiming to be staff of local banks, and offer them what they said were low-interest loan schemes.

They would then ask for guarantee money amounting to 10 percent of the loans.

"The loan offers as promised were not materialised after the deposits. They (suspects) never showed up in the entire dealings, the suspects became out of reach," said Ng Chun-yiu, senior inspector of the police's Commercial Crime Bureau.

The force said it took action on Thursday and Friday, arresting 22 people aged between 19 and 38, including the mastermind of the syndicate.

Also arrested were two directors of two licensed financial companies, who were accused of passing on client information to the syndicate.

"Indeed in past investigations of low-interest loan scams, we seldom saw [scammers] obtaining client information from financial companies," Ng said.

He said a probe is underway to find out if the financial firms had violated their licence terms.