Crime is up 32 percent since last year
The fastest growing areas of criminal activity are telecommunications fraud – including phone scammers impersonating government officials – and illegal currency exchange activities.
Macao’s police force recorded a 31.7 percent increase in crime across the first three quarters of 2023, when compared with the same period last year, the Macau Post Daily reports.
Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak said that telecommunications fraud was the fastest-growing type of crime in the SAR. This includes telephone scams involving the impersonation of government officials, computer fraud relating to online credit card transactions, and ticket scams.
Wong said that police prevented 505 telecom fraud cases in the first nine months of the year, involving over 110 million patacas. He noted that new scam methodologies such as AI face-swapping and synthetic voice technology were being observed in neighbouring regions, but had yet to reach Macao.
[See more: Cyberattacks in Macao are soaring but officials say most are being foiled]
Illegal currency exchange activities are also on the rise. More than 1,000 individuals were reported to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, said Wong, and could face entry bans into gaming venues.
According to Wong, the rise in crime reflects the resumption of cross-border travel since the start of the year – when Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.
He noted, however, that the total number of crimes committed between January and September this year was still 8.9 percent fewer than those reported during the first nine months of pre-pandemic 2019.
