Hong Kong helps seize more than HK$157 million in cross-border online scam operation
Hong Kong and six other Asian jurisdictions, including Singapore and Thailand, have intercepted more than HK$157 million (US$20 million) and made more than 1,800 arrests in the first joint crackdown on online scams using a cross-border direct communication platform for law enforcement.
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Ernest Wong Chun-yu, chief superintendent of Hong Kong police's commercial crime bureau, announced on Tuesday that seven law enforcement agencies across East and Southeast Asia conducted a joint operation between April 28 and May 28 under a direct communication and information-sharing platform called Frontier+.
'We are racing against time, because the money can disappear very quickly … this platform provides a very useful communication platform, so we can communicate with one another quickly,' he said.
As part of the joint operation, police agencies in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and Macau investigated 9,268 reports. They seized US$19.4 million in suspected criminal proceeds, froze more than 32,000 bank accounts and arrested 1,858 individuals aged between 14 and 81.
These jurisdictions, alongside Australia, Canada and Indonesia, were part of a cross-border platform called Frontier+, which was formed last October.
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Anti-scam units of the participating police forces could directly communicate with one another to handle suspected crime proceeds and victims of transnational swindles, as well as share intelligence and scam trends.
Details of the operation and the cross-border platform were revealed at a joint press conference, attended by police representatives from Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and Macau.
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