CONFIDENTIAL
機密
- 5
Quarterly Trends of Commercial Crimes
20.
with forged
A new trend in credit card fraud has been discerned credit cards being used extensively in merchant outlets opened specifically for the purpose of fraud. The scheme has the overtones of a long firm fraud. Bogus companies in the form of retailed outlets are set up in the first instance, and agreements are signed with various credit card institutions. Within a relatively short period of time, a large number of sales slips (Record of Charges) are run off for fictitious transaction of significant amounts on forged credit cards, re-embossed and re-encoded, with details of overseas account holders. They are then submitted to credit card institutions for claims. As the fraud might take weeks to discover, by which time the bogus shop would have received the payment and closed down. Recently two of such cases have been brought to the attention of the Commercial Crime Bureau by the banks, and the cases are now being
investigated.
dollars.
21.
!
In both cases the sums involved exceeded several million
Following report in the previous quarter of the closure of four investment companies engaged in fringe margin tradings in foreign exchange, another cocmpany has also recently found themselves in serious financial problem and is at the edge of liquidation. The company has a liability of HK$16 million owed to their clients, and to-date a large number of post-dated cheques for the return of the clients' account balance cannot be honoured. The main reason for the collapse of this company would appear to be a heavy business loss in overseas investment.
CONFIDENTIAL #