Raymond Siu has urged parents and teachers to share information from a new crime prevention booklet with students. Photo: Elson LiBefore you read: Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu Chak-yee is worried about the rising number of young people involved in deception crimes. Scams, money laundering, ‘sextortion’ and drugs are common areas where the city’s teenagers and children come into contact with police or fall victim to criminals.
Think about it: What steps can you take to protect yourself and others from becoming victims of scams and other crimes? How can you educate your peers and family about potential fraud?
Hong Kong’s top police officer has urged young people to think carefully about the harm they can cause themselves and their families if they break the law.
In an exclusive interview with Young Post, Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu Chak-yee said he was worried about the increasing number of youngsters being convinced to commit crimes that involved tricking others.
Siu also shared his advice for students and outlined the crimes that teenagers were most at risk of committing.
“If you always think about the possible serious consequences, then you might tell yourself: I better not commit the crime,” he said.
“I think being a law-abiding citizen is extremely important, because whenever they commit any crimes, you know that the major victims will be themselves and their family, not those who actually lured them into committing the crimes.”
The police chief said scams, money laundering, “sextortion” and drugs were areas where the city’s teenagers and children broke the law or fell victim to criminals.
Scams and deception are major contributors to criminal activity in the city.
From January to September this year, police recorded 32,120 fraud cases, an 8.3 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.
The police chief warned that teenagers in the past two years were increasingly drawn into scamming people or committing money laundering by lending their bank accounts to criminals, who would then transfer profits.
“Some people pay them, maybe HK$1,000, then they [will] give out their own account, what we call ‘stooge accounts’, to the scammers,” Siu said.
Sextortion blackmail cases are another risk.
These crimes target unsuspecting teenagers who are tricked into taking off their clothes when chatting with someone pretending to be a friend online. The friend, who is actually a scammer, secretly records footage and uses it to demand money from the victim.
The police commissioner said children were the largest group of victims in this type of case.
In the first nine months of the year, police recorded 1,805 sextortion cases, which was 22 per cent higher than the same period in 2023.
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Official data also showed that one-fifth of the 2,117 cases last year were aimed at students.
Crimes involving drugs showed an “alarming trend” a few years ago, but had improved thanks to joint efforts between police, schools and parents, Siu said.
Police statistics showed that 624 teenagers under the age of 21 were arrested for drug-related offences in 2021, but the number dropped to 297 last year.
The number of youngsters arrested for serious drug offences decreased from 430 cases in 2021 to 178 last year.
Siu said police were not the only ones responsible for preventing crime among the young population.
“We have to work early, work collaboratively and work continuously,” he said.
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“This is something that we have been telling [others involved], because we all have our own knowledge. We all have our own professionalism.”
Police not only meet school heads, parent-teacher associations and school sponsoring groups, but have also introduced a new youth crime prevention booklet.
The document was produced to explain laws and court cases to help parents and teachers by giving them more information that can be passed on to youngsters.
“If they have this sort of knowledge [that] we provide to them, they can help on a daily basis,” Siu said.
The police chief called on parents and teachers to share the content with children and teenagers.