Elderly Man, 60, Falls for Crypto Scam, Loses Over HK$21 Million in Six Months

October 09 - According to AASTOCKS news, police's "Cyber Defender" unit reported receiving over 40 investment fraud cases in the past week, with losses exceeding HK$36 million.

Among them, a local woman in her 60s was approached by a scammer on an online forum. After moving communication to WhatsApp, the scammer lured the victim into investing in cryptocurrency with promises of high returns. The scammer instructed the victim to download a cryptocurrency wallet app and provided links to a fake investment website, requiring authorization for the wallet to connect to the fake site for transfers.

In the early stages of investment, the victim profited HK$920,000 and successfully withdrew funds. Over the following six months, she made more than 20 transfers totaling approximately HK$19 million to the fake website, with the account balance showing as high as HK$42 million. Subsequently, the fake website account suddenly showed as frozen, and customer service demanded a deposit of over HK$7 million to unfreeze it. After transferring an additional HK$1.2 million, the victim became suspicious due to inability to pay and reported the case, ultimately confirming losses exceeding HK$21 million.

[TechFlow]