A Hong Kong woman has reportedly been scammed out of nearly $1 million after being tricked into sending money to a fake crypto trading platform.
According to a new report from the South China Morning Post (SCMP), a 46-year-old Hong Kong woman was tricked into sending just over $900,000 to 15 different offshore bank accounts between 2022 and 2023.
She was tricked into sending the money with the promise that the money would be used to invest in digital assets. According to the report, she didn’t call authorities until last Tuesday, many months after she made her first deposit.
An anonymous source familiar with the case told SCMP that the woman became suspicious when she was unable to contact the two people who tricked her into depositing money.
“She only became suspicious when she was unable to contact two online scammers and withdraw money from the trading platform. She discovered it was a scam when she discussed it with her family.”
The source says that the woman was contacted via Instagram in 2022 by a scammer who tricked her into investing in crypto via a non-existent trading platform. A second scammer then posed as an employee of the fictitious crypto trading service and instructed her to deposit funds into specific accounts for approximately eight months.
“Another suspect posed as a customer service representative of the trading platform and instructed the victim to transfer more than HK$7.12 million ($908,000) to designated bank accounts between August 19, 2022 and March 4, 2023.”
The source also says that the Hong Kong resident has never seen a profit from her investments.
Although no arrests have been made so far, authorities say they are treating this incident as “obtaining property by deception,” a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the report.
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