While Hong Kong saw a slight drop in overall scam cases in the first five months of the year, senior residents have emerged as a hard-hit demographic, with the number of elderly victims rising 15 percent year-on-year and their total financial losses surging by 40 percent.

Joe Chow Yat-ming, commissioner of police of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, reported the figures at a Tuen Mun District Council meeting on Monday.

Chow said the city logged 16,682 scam cases from January through May, a 2.3 percent year-on-year drop. But total financial losses rose to HK$2.94 billion ($374.85 million), up 2.4 percent compared with the previous year.

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Chow said that senior residents were one of the hardest-hit groups in fraud cases, with the number of victims rising by 15 percent and their financial losses surging by 40 percent year-on-year.

“The situation regarding senior people falling prey to investment fraud is deeply worrying,” Chow said. Seniors accounted for nearly 30 percent of the total number of victims in this category, while their financial losses comprised 40 percent of the total amount, he said.

In another major fraud category – phone scams – older residents constituted the largest group of victims among 3,766 recorded cases in the first five months of this year.

Long-term data also reflect seniors’ vulnerability to scams. According to Legislative Council records, over the past three years, 20,236 people suffered financial losses from phone scams. Among them, more than 42 percent were people aged 60 and above, who collectively lost over HK$2.3 billion.

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Police said that older residents generally accumulate relatively substantial wealth and retirement pensions throughout their working lives, so once targeted and deceived by fraudsters, they may face exceptionally severe financial ruin.

To reverse this trend, police have rolled out a series of publicity campaigns targeting the elderly, including anti-fraud Cantonese Operas, Chow said.

Chow said that police will actively collaborate with telecommunications operators to teach elderly residents how to use smartphones safely and minimize the exposure of their digital footprints.

On Thursday, the Hong Kong Association of Banks, Police Force, Security Bureau, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority jointly launched a community-wide anti-fraud education campaign to enhance the public’s anti-fraud awareness.

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At the launch ceremony, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok and Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung demonstrated how fraudsters can leverage artificial-intelligence-powered face-swapping technology in scams.

“Most fraud cases nowadays involve highly sophisticated and covert technologies, and many are also linked to cross-border criminal activities,” Lam said.

“The most critical factor is to strengthen the general public’s awareness of scam prevention, ensuring that fraudsters are unable to succeed from the very beginning.”

Roys Zhang contributed to the story.

Contact the writer at gangwen@chinadailyhk.com