Today, February 14, Valentine's Day is a romantic and warm day for thousands of couples. As for singles, be careful to fall into love traps while trying to find a lover.
Last year, Hong Kong received a total of 19,000 fraud cases, an increase of nearly 24% over the previous year. Among them, there were 642 emerging "online dating investment fraud cases", a sharp increase of 2.5 times, and the loss amounted to 360 million yuan.
A 65-year-old retired wealthy woman “encountered” a beautiful man who claimed to be returning to Hong Kong from Canada on a rental platform last year, and the opponent launched a strong courtship attack on her. After the "love" lasted for a month, when the retired lady wanted to withdraw money for arbitrage, but was accused of money laundering by the investment app, she realized that she "lost both human and wealth".
Extended reading: Phone scams make young Hong Kong and Macau students become money laundering tools, 20-year-old "Hong Kong spy" arrested
The emerging "online dating investment scam" recorded a 2.5-fold increase of 642 cases last year, and the loss amounted to 360 million yuan.
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(Screenshot of TVB drama "Mystery Network")
Screenshot of the police's 2018 "Beware of the Dating Trap" promotional video▼
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The ratio of males to females in online dating investment scams is 1:5
Last year, the police recorded 19,249 fraud cases, an increase of 23.8% over the previous year. The Police Anti-Fraud Coordination Center intercepted 2.35 billion yuan of fraudulent money.
The police pointed out that since 2020, there has been an "online dating investment scam", which is an online romance mixed investment scam. Last year, a total of 642 cases were recorded, an increase of 2.5 times compared with the 181 cases in the previous year, and the loss amounted to 360 million yuan. The 50-year-old group is at higher risk, with a male to female victim ratio of 1:5.
2021 scam numbers
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Rich woman was lobbied to invest in cryptocurrencies and wanted to withdraw money only to find out she was deceived
The biggest loss last year occurred in October. A 65-year-old retired woman posted a rental unit on an online rental platform. A few days later, she received an inquiry from a man who claimed to be a 38-year-old "returnee" who claimed to hold a mainland passport. , plans to return to Hong Kong to settle in Canada, and urgently needs a place to live.
The police pointed out that the "returnee man" used a "beautiful, mature, stable" photo on the communication software to pursue the retired lady fiercely. When the retired lady "falls in love", the man persuaded her to invest in cryptocurrencies and download a Fake investment in Bitcoin App, and successively deposit 17.8 million yuan into 8 local accounts.
A month later, the retired lady earned more than 44 million yuan in the book. When she wanted to cash out, the investment app showed that her account had been used for money laundering and was frozen, and instructed her to pay a deposit of about 8 million yuan before she could withdraw the money. When the money was retrieved, the "boyfriend" also lost contact.
The Chief Inspector of the Commercial Crime Bureau, Yan Kaixin, said that he noticed that the victims of electrical fraud tend to be younger.
(Picture provided by police)
21-year-old student was charged 90,000 yuan for entering information on suspicious website
As for phishing scams, there were 633 losses of $8.9 million last year. The biggest loss last year was a 21-year-old male student. He received a text message purporting to be sent by Hongkong Post, saying that his package could not be processed due to lack of information, and asked him to press The attached link was used to enter the fake website, and the credit card information was entered. After that, the credit card was charged for 4 suspicious transactions, involving a total of US$12,000, equivalent to about HK$93,000.
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