Two men have been arrested after several renovation and engineering companies were scammed out of a total of HK$1.5 million, police said on Sunday.

Officers said the companies were given work on what were purported to be school projects and were persuaded to use particular suppliers for materials.

The firms were tricked into believing they had received deposits for the work, via forged screenshots of remittance records or cheques that bounced, before they made payments to the "suppliers".

"Once the victims made payments to those fake suppliers, they would lose all communication to the [fraudsters] and suppliers. Then the companies eventually realised they had been scammed,” said Chief Inspector Tam Tsz-wai.

Officers said they arrested two men, aged 33 and 44, in Yuen Long on Friday, on suspicion of obtaining property by deception.

Tam urged companies to check with their banks that their account balances increase following payments from clients, to ensure that the transactions have not been manipulated.