A 46-year-old housewife in Hong Kong has reported a loss of HK$7.1 million ($908,000) after investing in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platform.
According to a report by the South China Morning Post, people familiar with the case said the woman did not realize she had been scammed until a year after the incident, when she discussed the investment with her family.
Hong Kong housewife scammed $908,000
One of the scammers contacted victims through Instagram in July 2022, urging them to invest in cryptocurrencies through a link to a fraudulent trading platform.
The suspects, along with another fraudster posing as a customer service representative from a purported trading platform, deceived women into making 15 million dollar cryptocurrency investments between August 19, 2022 and March 4, 2023. had over $900,000 transferred to his bank account. There was no return on her investment.
The anonymous source said she was unable to withdraw her funds or contact the scammers, including a fake customer service representative, making her suspicious of the plan.
The housewife believed the cryptocurrency investment was a scam and reported it to local police earlier this week, and an investigation continues. Detectives in Hong Kong's Western District found that the name of a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform was linked to similar fraud reports through Scammeter.
The platform allows members of the public to check for suspicious or fraudulent web/IP addresses, emails, platform usernames, bank accounts, and mobile phone numbers. When asked why he did not conduct due diligence on the trading platform through Scameter, the victim said he was not familiar with search engines.
Cryptocurrency fraud on the rise
No arrests have been made, but police have classified the case as “obtaining property by deception,'' which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Hong Kong police have revealed that crypto investment fraud is on the rise as the region gains adoption of digital assets. Last year, economic losses due to cryptocurrency investment fraud increased by 42.6% to HK$3.26 billion from HK$926 million in 2022. The number of reports also increased from 1,884 in the previous year to 5,105 in 2023.
