Hong Kong’s law and order situation in the first quarter of this year remained stable, with a 6.2% drop in total crime cases compared to the same period last year, Police said today.

A total of 13,866 crime cases were recorded in the period.

Decreases were registered in robbery, burglary, wounding and serious assault, criminal intimidation, criminal damage, theft and serious drug offences.

However, there were increases in cases of homicide, child abuse, deception and blackmail.

The number of deception cases rose 29% to 5,378, over 70% of which were Internet-related.

The rise was mainly driven by the upsurge of cases in online shopping, employment and investment fraud as well as telephone deception.

There were less compensated dating and romance scam cases, but the pecuniary loss involved rose 31% to $14.3 million and $180 million.

A total of 432 blackmail cases were recorded, an increase of 28.6% compared with the same period last year. The upsurge was mainly attributable to “naked chat” blackmail.

As at March 31, Police arrested a total of 175 people in its efforts to enforce the National Security Law. Of that figure, over 110 people have been charged.