The number of phone scams recorded in Hong Kong over the first five months of 2026 has surged 46 per cent compared with the same period last year, with a recent police operation arresting 61 suspects in cases involving more than HK$31 million (US$3.95 million). The suspects, aged 17 to 82, were arrested this month…
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority will begin using standard prefixes for telephone numbers to make it easier for people to recognise its calls rather than avoiding them due to scammers and advertisers. Starting next Tuesday, all phone calls made by the authority, which oversees public medical facilities, will display a unified caller ID number beginning with…
Nearly a third of scam victims who sought counselling through a Hong Kong welfare group’s crisis hotlines last year had possible suicidal tendencies, according to a study by the organisation. The Caritas Family Crisis Support Centre said on Sunday that its hotline service handled 3,983 debt-related cases in 2025, with more than 31 per cent…
A law amendment proposal to reduce the number of prepaid SIM cards per user from 10 to three is not robust enough to deter rampant phone scams, according to Hong Kong lawmakers, who called for a more holistic approach to handling the issue Hong Kong authorities have proposed reducing the maximum number of prepaid SIM…
Hong Kong and Singaporean police have teamed up to smash a cross-border syndicate suspected of spending about HK$18 million (US$2.3 million) to buy prepaid SIM cards for running phone scams. In Hong Kong, a police raid on seven offices led to the arrest of four local men, aged 23 to 48, with officers also seizing…