Police announced on Tuesday that they busted a loan shark syndicate and arrested 13 people, with the youngest being 14, in relation to criminal cases concerning over HK$100 million.

The police spokesmen stated that there has been a rise in debt collection cases, and after conducting an in-depth investigation and analysis, they discovered that loan sharks used cold calls and social media to lure citizens with low credit scores to lend money.

During the process of the loan, the loan sharks would request administration fees for various reasons.

The actual interest rate of the loans was revealed to be up to 180 to 1645 percent, much higher than the law-mandated 48 percent.

After the victims were unable to pay back the loans, the loan sharks would send out an action team who would harass the victim and their family using threatening calls, dousing red paint, etc.

The officers also discovered that the syndicate used the stooge accounts of local banks to collect and lend loans, and during the period between March 2023 and July 2024, they had laundered over HK$100 million.

Police mounted an operation yesterday (Aug 12) and raided several target units in Hong Kong and arrested 13 people, aged between 14 and 66, on suspicion of several crimes, including conspiracy to operate money services without a license, criminal damage, money laundering, etc.

Among the arrested, six of them were stooge account holders, and the youngest arrestee was a student.

The spokesman said that there were at least 20 victims of the syndicate, who had lent HK$10,000 to HK$100,000 from them.

It is believed that the victims had previously lent money from illegal loan sharks, during which they had leaked their personal information and led the crime syndicates to learn of their credit score, the spokesman added.

Sources: The Standard