Hong Kong concentrated a large portion of the losses detected by an international operation carried out across ten jurisdictions, which uncovered 752 million US dollars (690 million euros) in fraud, a newspaper from the Chinese region reported today.
Conducted between March 10 and May 7 with the participation of 3,200 officers, the operation investigated 138,000 cases linked to investment scams, online shopping, fake job offers, and telephone schemes, resulting in 3,018 arrests and intercepting around 161 million dollars in allegedly illicit funds, according to the South China Morning Post.
In Hong Kong, police arrested 870 people aged between 13 and 83 and blocked 539 million Hong Kong dollars (68.8 million US dollars/63 million euros), noted the English-language newspaper, citing data released by the police on Wednesday. The losses attributed to fraud committed in the city amounted to 319 million US dollars (293 million euros), equivalent to 42% of the total identified across the entire operation.
Although the number of cases was lower than that recorded in Indonesia or Thailand, the former British colony presented the highest average loss per case, at 429,919 US dollars (395,000 euros), and managed to recover around 21% of the stolen money, according to law enforcement data.
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The international investigation was framed within the Frontier+ platform, which is composed of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, the Maldives, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
In total, officers froze 101,989 bank accounts, including more than 43,000 in Indonesia and around 28,000 in South Korea, while in Hong Kong, 742 cases were analyzed and 202 accounts were blocked. The largest case involved a Singaporean company that lost 36 million dollars (33 million euros) after the hacking of an account on a messaging application.
The money was transferred to various accounts in Singapore and Hong Kong, and nearly half was converted into stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, before being distributed across multiple virtual wallets. The joint action allowed authorities to intercept 20 million dollars (18.4 million euros) in that specific case.
Authorities also warned of the growing use of virtual asset platforms for money laundering and advocated for the strengthening of information sharing between countries, according to the South China Morning Post.
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In parallel, Hong Kong recorded a total of 9,427 scams in the first quarter of 2026, which is 0.6% fewer than in the same period last year, but with losses 18,6% higher, reaching 236.2 million dollars (217 million euros). There was a 17% increase in investment scams targeting elderly people.
The jurisdictions involved in the joint operation, along with Australia, were part of the cross-border anti-fraud combat platform called Frontier+, which was originally formed in October 2024.
Authorities stressed that regional cooperation allowed them to track the path of the money much faster and pointed out that Frontier+ will seek to incorporate new partners to increase the effectiveness of future investigations.
The objective is to close cross-border escape routes, accelerate the freezing of assets, and respond to the displacement of criminal funds toward digital banks and cryptocurrency markets, which are increasingly used by fraud networks.
