Hong Kong police have detained eight people accused of running a scam ring that overcame bank verification checks to open accounts by replacing images on lost identification cards with deepfakes that included scammers' facial features.
Senior Superintendent Philip Lui Che-ho of the force's financial intelligence and investigation division stated on Saturday that the raid was part of a citywide operation on scams, cybercrime, and money laundering that took place between April 7 and 17. Officers arrested 503 persons aged 18 to 80. Losses in the cases surpassed HK$1.5 billion (US$193.2 million.
Officers arrested the eight suspects on Thursday for allegedly using at least 21 Hong Kong identification cards that were reported lost to make 44 applications to create local bank accounts, according to Chief Inspector Sun Yi-ki of the force's cybersecurity and technology crime branch.
“The syndicate first tried to use deepfake technology to merge the scammer’s facial features with the cardholder’s appearance, followed by uploading the scammer’s selfie to impersonate the cardholder and bypass the online verification process,” Sun said.
Following the successful completion of online identification checks at banks, thirty out of the forty-four applications were accepted. In half of the successful attempts, artificial intelligence was used to construct images that combined the identity card's face with the scammer's. The others just substituted the scammer's photo for the one on the ID.
Police claimed the bank accounts were used to apply for loans and make credit card transactions worth HK$860,000, as well as to launder more than HK$1.2 million in suspected illegal proceeds. Sun said the force was still looking into how the syndicate obtained the ID cards, which were claimed lost between 2023 and 2024. On suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering, police detained the six men and two women and seized numerous laptops, phones, and external storage devices.
The accused range in age from 24 to 41, with the mastermind and main members of the ring allegedly belonging to local triad gangs. Lui urged the public against renting, lending, or selling access to their bank accounts to anyone.
The 333 men and 170 women arrested during the citywide raid were discovered to be engaged in 404 crimes, the most of which were employment frauds, financial swindles, and internet shopping scams. They were caught for conspiracy to defraud, gaining property by deception, and money laundering. Two cross-border money-laundering operations were busted in coordination with mainland Chinese authorities over the last two weeks.
Lui claimed that one of the syndicates laundered alleged illicit earnings from fraud operations by hiring tourists from the mainland to purchase gold jewellery in Hong Kong. Between last December and March of this year, the syndicate was discovered to have been involved in 240 mainland scam instances, resulting in losses of 18.5 million yuan (US$2.5 million).
“Syndicate masterminds would recruit stooges from various provinces on the mainland, bringing them to Hong Kong via land borders and provide hostel accommodation,” the senior superintendent stated.
Syndicate members would then arrange for the recruits to purchase gold jewellery in the city using digital payment methods, with each transaction costing tens to hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars. On Tuesday last week, Hong Kong police apprehended three individuals who had just purchased 34 pieces of gold jewellery for HK$836,000 per the syndicate's orders. Two of them had two-way passes, which are travel documents that allow mainlanders to access the city. The third suspect was a Hong Konger.
On the same day, mainland police arrested 17 persons. The second cross-border syndicate arranged for mainlanders to create accounts in Hong Kong using fraudulent bank, employment, and utility bill documents. Police in Hong Kong and the mainland arrested a total of 16 persons in connection with the investigation. From December 2023 to April, the syndicate was involved in 61 scam instances in the city, resulting in losses of HK$26.7 million. Accounts were created to receive the scam money.