With Tote Bags, Police Try to Combat a ‘Blessing Scam’

Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times Detective Kevin O’Donnell handed out bags in Flushing, Queens, on Wednesday, as part of the Police Department’s campaign against a “blessing scam.”

On a street corner in Flushing, Queens, on Wednesday afternoon, Ping Fan, 56, clutched a new tote bag with an unusual provenance: it was a gift from police officers who handed it to her as she strolled down Kissena Boulevard.

The bag, Ms. Fan learned, was intended to be armor of sorts.

Over the last year, New York’s Chinatowns, in Flushing and in Manhattan, have been plagued b an unusual crime known as the “blessing scam” that plays on the traditional spiritual beliefs of Chinese immigrants.

Scammers approach victims, usually elderly Chinese women, telling them they look haggard and unlucky. The solution, the women are told, is to shove all of their valuables in a sack to be blessed, and to be unsealed several days later.

But its only when the bundles are opened that the victims realize truly how unlucky they are: the sacks are invariably empty except for crushed newspaper, water bottles and rice, having been swapped for an identical bag long before. And the helpful stranger is now nowhere to be found.

(In one of the latest examples, the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday announced that five people had been accused of attempting to scam a 67-year-old woman in Chinatown earlier this month.)

To combat the problem, th! e police have begun a multipronged awareness campaign, aimed at older people with talks at nursing homes and announcements on Chinese television programs. The latest weapon in their arsenal: a cloth shopping bag.

The bright blue bags, 1,000 of which were on hand at a booth set up by the police on a Flushing street corner on Wednesday, are emblazoned with words of warning about the crime in both Chinese characters and English. It says:

“Blessing frauds.
Beware of street scams!
Please call 911 if you are a victim or witness of a scam.”

It also has the Police Department logo and the name of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

“All the Chinese people are losing money,” said Ms. Fan as she took her bag. “I need to be careful.”

The bag, said Inspector Brian Maguire of the 109th Precinct in Flushing, “is a way to let a potential perpetrator who wants to commit a crime think that, ‘Oh maybe I shouldn’t go near that person because they’re aware of this cam.’”

The police believe the thievery often goes unreported because of the embarrassment of being so stupendously duped, Inspector Maguire said.

“They play on superstitions that members of the Chinese culture have where they believe their family will be affected by bad luck, and evil spirits,” he said, adding, “We had to think outside the box.”

Mei-Yu Liu contributed reporting.