A local woman in her 60s lost more than HK$21 million in a cryptocurrency investment scam after a scammer responded to her post on an online discussion forum, police said.
After replying to the woman’s forum post, the scammer continued the conversation with her on WhatsApp and persuaded her to invest in cryptocurrency. Police said the scammers directed her to download a cryptocurrency-wallet app, then sent her a link to a fake investment site and told her to connect the app to it to make transfers.
The investment initially appeared to pay off: she reportedly made HK$920,000 in profit and deposited it into her wallet. Over about six months, she made more than 20 transfers to the fake site. HK01 reported that the site displayed an account balance of more than HK$42 million.
The site later showed her account as frozen, and its customer service demanded more than HK$7 million to release it. She transferred HK$1.2 million but could not pay more. After becoming suspicious, she reported the case; police put her total loss at more than HK$21 million and warned people against opening unfamiliar investment-site links, saying promises of high returns with low risk could signal a scam.