Hong Kong Police: Over 150 WhatsApp Account Hijacking Cases in Two Weeks, Virtual Currency Exchange Company Loses Over HK$4 Million

Hong Kong police reported that over 150 WhatsApp account hijacking scam cases were received in the past two weeks, with total losses exceeding HK$15 million. Recently, an employee of a local company engaged in virtual currency exchange services fell victim to account hijacking. The scammers locked the original work group and blocked its members, then replicated the group's image, name, members, and profile pictures to create a fake group, impersonating client representatives to request exchanges. The victim, following usual practice, first transferred cryptocurrency to the designated wallet provided by the other party, only realizing the fraud after discovering insufficient balance in the client's account and verifying by phone, resulting in company losses of over HK$4 million. Police reminded that WhatsApp groups can be forged, but members' phone numbers cannot be identical to those in real groups, and message timestamps cannot be replicated. They also advised enabling two-factor authentication, verifying the other party by phone before transferring funds, and avoiding logging into accounts on public WiFi or public computers.