As many as 59 people, including 55 men and 4 women, were targeted in a naked-chat blackmail scam in one week as revealed by Hong Kong Police in an advisory. The police shared that the victims were honey-trapped by extortionists on the internet and eventually lured to remove their clothes during video chats. After this, these footage were used by the scammers to blackmail victims, forcing them to pay more than HK$1.9 million (over Rs 2 crore) to avoid leaking private videos online or sending them to their families. The Hong Kong police issued an advisory for people to be cautious of such scams.
First reported by South China Morning Post (SCMP), Hong Kong police said that the scammers, posing as “highly educated, high-income and physically attractive” generally tricked victims into undressing during the call. After the victims complied, the scammers took videos and demanded a ransom for the private material.
Hong Kong Police also mentioned that scammers would make use of sweet talk to trap the victims. “They use sweet talk to learn about the victims’ personal lives and interests to manipulate them,” as quoted by the news outlet.
Police further revealed that students made up one-fifth of the 1,102 targets of naked chat blackmail in the first half of this year. Fraudsters directly benefited from all the victims and took more than HK$31 million (Rs 34.94 crore). As a matter of concern, some of these students were as young as 11 years old.
In another report, SCMP revealed that technology-related crimes in Hong Kong had increased by 47.3% in the first half of 2023, with nearly 15, 637 cases being reported. These incidents caused losses amounting to HK$2.03 billion (more than Rs 2,291 crore). Police said that this was a result of the increase in online activities after Covid-19.
As per reports, in the first half of 2024, the city’s police department confirmed 16,182 criminal offenses involving technology, a 3.5% rise compared to last year. Police Chief Superintendent Raymond Lam Cheuk-ho told the news outlet that the total losses in these incidents came to HK$2.66 billion (over Rs 2,997 crore).
Comments
0 comment