Hong Kong recorded more than 94,700 reported crime cases in 2024 – up 5 per cent from the previous year – driven by a surge in scams, the city’s police commissioner has said.
Fraud cases, which continued to cause the increase in overall crime last year, rose 11.7 per cent from 2023, Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu said on Tuesday. Violent crime also rose 3.6 per cent in 2024, reaching a total of 10,400 cases, Siu said, adding that the rise was primarily due to “naked chat blackmail” scams.
“We can see the surge in fraud has been the main reason for the rise in overall crime and the decrease in crime detection rate,” Siu told lawmakers in Cantonese during a special meeting of the Legislative Council’s security panel.
Police recorded more than 44,400 fraud cases in 2024, which accounted for 47 per cent of the overall crime last year, Siu said. The detection rate for fraud was only 10.6 per cent, he added.
More than 5,500 cases involved scammers posing as customer service staff – which police described as a new deception tactic that emerged in early 2024.
‘Stooge’ account holders
Around 77 per cent of over 10,000 people arrested last year were suspected of holding “stooge” accounts, Siu told LegCo, referring to bank accounts used to receive or launder crime proceeds.
The police chief said that Hong Kong authorities would study other jurisdictions such as Singapore in lowering the prosecution threshold for money laundering, and that they would continue to apply to the courts for heavier sentences imposed on “stooge” account holders.
Hong Kong has seen a spike in fraud-related cases in recent years, with the number nearly tripling between 2020 and 2024.
