Macau police open upgraded anti-fraud centre

The centre now includes a dedicated office area and an AI deep fake interactive experience area.

Macau.- The Judiciary Police has held an opening ceremony for the updated anti-fraud coordination centre at its headquarters on Avenida da Amizade. The centre has an AI Deepfake Interactive Experience Zone, a learning area for an anti-fraud app, a multimedia studio, a visual data display and a hotline support office.

At the ceremony, deputy director Sou Sio Keong said the project was completed earlier this year and entered a trial phase, which has been running smoothly.

In 2024, the JP investigated 1,260 cases of telecommunications network fraud. That’s a decrease of 1.4 per cent in the number of cases. The amount of money involved was MOP232m (US$28.8m), down 25.3 per cent in year-on-year terms. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases fell by 12.1 per cent.

There were also 689 cases of phishing messages and fraudulent websites designed to steal credit card information, up 1.1 per cent in year-on-year terms. These scams caused over MOP14m (US$1.8m) in losses to both businesses and people, making them the largest-growing category of online crime in the region.

The PJ reported that gaming-related crimes rose by 28.6 per cent year-on-year to 1,423 in 2024. The number was 34 per cent lower than in 2019. The PJ noted there were 252 cases involving illegal gambling loans and some 47 cases of related unlawful detentions. Both figures were higher than those in 2023 but lower than in 2019.

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