Victims have allegedly been scammed of more than $400,000 as part of \u201cauthority scams\u201d, mainly targeting Chinese international students.<\/p>\n
NSW police in Sydney\u2019s inner city, south and east said they have received an increase in reports of scams where victims are being contacted by scammers claiming to be a Chinese police officer or from another \u201clegitimate organisation\u201d, before being threatened with arrest.<\/p>\n
The victims are then told they need to transfer money or cryptocurrency to avoid arrest.<\/p>\n
Police said a 22-year-old woman was contacted in May by someone claiming to be from a health insurance company in China. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was then transferred to another person claiming to be a Chinese police officer, who told her that her phone number was linked to a \u2018known terrorist\u2019 who was currently outstanding following financial crimes,\u201d a NSW police spokesperson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe woman was told that she would have a warrant for her arrest and her family would be arrested unless she transferred money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victim reported a loss of more than $400,000.<\/p>\n
A 23-year-old man reported a loss of $301,000 after being told he was a suspect in a money laundering case.<\/p>\n
\u201cScammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the way that they target their victims,\u201d Cybercrime squad commander detective superintendent Matthew Craft said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will use a range of tactics to intimidate victims into acting quickly to make a payment, including threats of arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese threats may appear real, but they are not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone who thinks they may have received a scam call should report it to the National Anti-Scam Centre, and who has fallen victim to a scam, is urged to report it via the ReportCyber portal.<\/p>\n
Victims can also attend their local police stations to make a report or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victims have allegedly been scammed of more than $400,000 as part of \u201cauthority scams\u201d, mainly targeting Chinese international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[297,23,133,13110,2285,13100,13101,13108,378,2288,13113,13106,13114,393,13109,13103,13105,13112,355,379,120,13111,3091,13107,13102,502,13104,247],"class_list":["post-12317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-asia","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-authority-scams","tag-china","tag-chinese-international-students","tag-chinese-police-officer","tag-chris-sheehan","tag-crime-stoppers","tag-eastern-asia","tag-estimates-losses","tag-financial-crime","tag-foreign-police-scam","tag-harvey-constable","tag-health-insurance-company","tag-john-appleyard","tag-matthew-craft","tag-money-laundering-case","tag-new-south-wales","tag-newswire-news","tag-oceania","tag-phone-number","tag-police-spokesperson","tag-police-stations","tag-scam-call","tag-sky-news-australia","tag-squad-commander","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}