Cross-border ‘TikTok’ hoax costs Macau over MOP10 mln – Macau Business

By Aries Un
Police in Macau have busted the cross-border Douyin scam plaguing the territory recently, with three arrests made as a result.
Information supplied by the Judiciary Police on Thursday showed that the bust took place on 12 October, with the orchestrated scheme allegedly leading to a combined loss of over MOP10 million (US$1.24 million).
The security agency announced at a press conference that it had taken action with its Zhuhai counterpart to uncover the alleged telecoms syndicate, which netted 54 residents in total between 18 September and 12 October.
Apart from the three arrests, the police also found a large amount of equipment suspected of being used to operate the hoax scam.
However, the joint endeavour is still ongoing as the security forces are still cooperating to track down the mastermind behind the alleged scheme, the whereabouts of the money defrauded, and possible colluders upstream.
The authorities consider the three suspects, all with a mainland background, to be core members responsible for technological support and equipment maintenance.
A thorough investigation found that the scammers allegedly employed a ‘highly deceptive’ approach, which had been tailored to Macau residents.
All the devices involved in the scheme were found to have been fitted with prepaid SIM cards from Macau.
As many as 66 mobile phones were uncovered, 42 of which were found to have been running.
In order for the devices to feign local calls, the alleged defrauders gained signal access to a base station in Ilha Verde in northern Macau.
Call recipients were told that it was a customer service representative from Douyin calling them. Douyin is the Chinese mainland version of TikTok, a popular social media platform these days.
The callers were further instructed to pay MOP800 to cancel their subscriptions, which were nearing expiration.
The victims were even led to download an unknown mobile application, via which they shared their phone screens with the alleged perpetrators.
This process allowed the suspects to manipulate the victims’ phones and enabled the latter to wire money from their bank accounts.
For victims using credit cards, the alleged scammers would lead them to activate the NFC feature, thereby obtaining chip data and card information.
This move would transmit the card information to overseas telephone units and servers to execute unauthorised charges abroad.
An official calculation concluded that at least 19,500 phone calls had been made since the second half of September.
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