A 46-year-old Hong Kong housewife reported losses of HK$7.1 million ($908,000) after investing in a fraudulent crypto investment platform.
According to a report According to the South China Morning Post, people familiar with the matter revealed that the woman only realized she had been scammed a year after the incident, when she discussed the investment with his family.
Hong Kong housewife scammed out of $908,000
One of the fraudsters contacted the victim via Instagram in July 2022 and urged them to invest in cryptocurrencies via a link to a fraudulent trading platform.
Along with another scammer, who posed as a customer service representative of the purported trading platform, the suspects tricked the woman into transferring more than $900,000 to 15 bank accounts for crypto investments from August 19 2022 to March 4, 2023. During this time, she received no profit on her investments.
Unidentified sources said she became suspicious of the scheme when she was unable to withdraw her assets or contact the fraudsters, including the fake customer service representative.
After thinking the crypto investment was a scam, the housewife reported it to local police earlier this week, and investigations are ongoing. Detectives in Hong Kong's Western District discovered that the name of the fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform was linked to similar scam reports via Scameter.
This platform allows the public to search for suspicious or fraudulent web/IP addresses, emails, platform usernames, bank accounts, and mobile numbers. When asked why she did not do due diligence on the trading platform through Scameter, the victim replied that she was not familiar with the search engine.
Crypto scams on the rise
Although no arrests were made, police described the case as “obtaining property by deception”, which carries a prison sentence of up to ten years.
Hong Kong police have revealed that there has been a rise in crypto investment scams amid the growing adoption of digital assets in the territory. Last year, financial losses from crypto investment fraud soared 42.6% to HK$3.26 billion, up from HK$926 million in 2022. The number of reports has also increased from 1,884 to 5,105 in 2023 the previous year.
2024 LIMITED OFFER for CryptoPotato readers at Bybit: Use this link to sign up and open a $500 BTC-USDT position on Bybit Exchange for free!