Crypto scammers steal over $1M from 2 elderly people in Hong Kong

Two elder Hong Kong citizens mislaid $1.3 cardinal (HK$10 million) successful abstracted scam cases involving cryptocurrencies and mainland Chinese stocks, SCMP reported connected May 4.

In 1 case, a 66-year-old businesswoman was scammed via WhatsApp. The scammer posed arsenic a cryptocurrency expert, advising her to put successful Tether (USDT) with the committedness of important returns.

According to constabulary investigations, the unfortunate unwittingly gave her idiosyncratic accusation to the scammers aft filling retired an online form. The “expert” told her they needed this accusation to wage her profits. However, the hackers utilized this signifier to cod confidential accusation from their victims.

To summation her trust, the scammers gave her HK$75,000 connected the archetypal transaction earlier stealing HK$4.6 cardinal (590 Tether ) from her wallet. The funds were stolen betwixt January 27 and March 31.

Investment fraud

Meanwhile, the different unfortunate was a 71-year-old antheral who mislaid HK$5.15 cardinal to concern fraud.

According to the report, the fraudster posed arsenic a fiscal concern level worker who convinced him to download a fake trading level and put successful the stocks of mainland Chinese companies. The unfortunate transferred the funds to 9 slope accounts based connected instructions.

The idiosyncratic lone discovered helium had been scammed erstwhile helium could not entree the level to retreat his money.

Online fraud rising

These 2 cases correspond the extremity of the iceberg regarding online concern fraud successful Hong Kong. According to the Police, reported cases of this benignant of fraud accrued by 92% successful 2022 compared to the erstwhile year.

Additionally, the complaint of employment scams successful the metropolis has increased, with 196 radical losing HK$40 cardinal (over $5 million) to the aforesaid scam successful the archetypal 2 weeks of April.

Meanwhile, the prevalence of these scams has forced the authorities to treble their efforts. Hong Kong has launched an exertion called Scameter to assistance users find the hazard of fraud.

The station Crypto scammers bargain implicit $1M from 2 aged radical successful Hong Kong appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.