China News Service, April 24. According to Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po, during the current round of the epidemic in Hong Kong, some scammers recruited people who work from home to earn extra money on social platforms and mobile applications. There is a commission charge, but after the victim completes the task, the scammer disappears immediately.
For the first time, the police have discovered the involvement of overseas fraudsters with hidden identities.
The police recently arrested 11 people in a "blaze" operation, involving at least 37 people defrauding a total of 4.6 million yuan (HKD, the same below).
The arrested 11 people, including 7 men and 4 women, include 4 backbones of job-seeking fraud cases and a backbone of online shopping fraud cases. The remaining 6 persons were involved in opening puppet accounts to handle illicit money for fraudsters. They were respectively suspected of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. 4 people have been charged and the remaining 7 people have been released on bail pending investigation.
The police investigation found that online job-hunting scams have increased during the epidemic. The scammers posted job advertisements on different social platforms or through text messages, with words such as making quick money and working from home.
Scammers will pretend to be a well-known local department store, but are actually using fake websites that mimic local online shopping stores.
Fraudsters claim to hire sellers or snatchers to increase the seller’s sales record through the number of purchases. They promise to return the principal and provide commissions in return after the transaction, but require the workers to purchase a specific amount of goods, including daily necessities and precious items. products, and remit the money to the designated bank or stored value facility account, etc.
However, when the job seeker remits the money, the scammer will lose contact, and the job seeker's principal and commission will all be lost.
There are also online shopping scammers who specifically advertise the sale of epidemic prevention-related products on some online social platforms that focus on epidemic prevention supplies, falsely claiming to sell rapid test kits or epidemic prevention drugs at low prices, requiring buyers to pay in advance and refusing to hand in face-to-face on the grounds of the epidemic.
When the victim remits the money, the scammer loses contact.
From the 21st to the 22nd of this month, the Hong Kong police launched an operation code-named "Flaming Wheel" to search multiple target locations in Hong Kong and arrested a total of 11 people from two fraudulent syndicates, involving at least 34 job searches in Hong Kong from December last year to March this year. The fraud case and 3 online shopping fraud cases for anti-epidemic items amounted to 4.6 million yuan.
For the first time, the police discovered that local swindlers set up some electronic devices at home to use virtual private networks to help swindlers overseas to hide their real IPs so as to pretend to be people in Hong Kong. However, their online records are difficult to trace, making police investigations difficult.
During the operation, the police seized 8 computers, 15 mobile phones, 10 routers, 9 bank cards and 46 bank documents.