Police seek telecom shutdowns as phone scams surge
HK01 · 4 SOURCESabout 3 hours ago5 MIN
Summary
Hong Kong recorded 68,015 crimes in the first nine months of the year, up 2.1% year on year, with fraud cases rising to 34,679 and accounting for 51% of all crime. Commissioner of Police Chow Yat-ming (周一鳴), speaking at a Southern District Council meeting on November 2, said phone scams had overtaken online shopping fraud as the most serious scam type, with nearly 10,000 cases and HK$1.94 billion in losses. He said the trend worsened in August and September, when more than 3,900 phone scam reports were recorded and 80% involved bogus customer service calls. Police have asked telecom operators to urgently suspend a batch of internet phone numbers linked to the scams and are studying legislative amendments to tackle SIM-card trafficking.
Key Points
- Chow said fraud losses in the first nine months reached HK$6.02 billion, up 6.7% year on year, while fraud cases rose 7.9%.
- Phone scams made up nearly 30% of all fraud cases, with close to 10,000 reports, surpassing online shopping fraud as the leading category.
- Police analysis of victims’ call records found most scam calls were made from local numbers, increasing the chance that residents would answer.
- Officers found some people obtained SIM cards at retail shops, completed online real-name registration, then passed the cards to scam syndicates.
- Police said abuse of internet phone services rose from about 10% of such cases previously to 30% in August and September.
Why It Matters
For Hong Kong residents, the warning means scam calls may increasingly appear to come from ordinary local numbers rather than obvious overseas lines, making them harder to spot. The proposed legal changes and telecom shutdown requests also point to a broader enforcement push that could affect how SIM cards and internet calling services are sold, registered and monitored in Hong Kong.