Beware Of Scammers Posing As Health Officials: Police

Police on Wednesday warned of a surge in fraud cases in which swindlers pose as government officials, in particular health officials.

Officers said they recorded 956 phone scam cases in the first seven months of this year – 60 percent up on the same period last year.

Sixty percent of the cases involved fraudsters trying to obtain personal data or money by impersonating government officials, with the victims losing more than HK$400 million between them.

In particular, cases where fraudsters impersonate health officials have been on the rise, with 213 reported to the police.

A superintendent with the force's Kowloon East regional crime unit, Wong Yick-lung, said fraudsters have exploited people's worries over the pandemic.

"We observe the trend, the rising trend involving the tactics of [impersonating] the CHP [Centre for Health Protection]. I think it's mainly because of psychological reasons, people may think they really got involved in matters in relation to Covid, so they will think the stories presented by fraudsters are true. They will psychologically accept what the fraudsters said," Wong said.

Dr Albert Au from the Centre for Health Protection said health authorities only call the general public for contact-tracing or compliance checking purposes, such as seeing whether people have complied with compulsory testing notices.

"Whenever the Department of Health calls the general public, we will usually collect information related to our investigations and also contact-tracing. We will never ask the general public to provide any sensitive information related to finance or bank accounts, credit card numbers or any passwords," he said.

Au advised people to be cautious when they get calls from unfamiliar numbers, especially those with the prefix “+852", to avoid falling prey to scammers.

Police said they have arrested 173 people on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud or money laundering in an anti-fraud operation which began last month.