Last Updated: April 04, 2023, 18:18 IST
Scammers used Tinder to lure the victim. (credits: tinder.com)
The case has been categorised as “obtaining property by deception,” which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Finding the right person can already be a tricky task and for this man, the process got difficult and expensive. How expensive? $1.8 million or roughly Rs 15 crore. The man, a financial consultant, was recently duped of $1.8 million in a dating app scam that spanned over five weeks. The victim was coaxed into investing in cryptocurrency by a con artist posing as a female investment broker he met on Tinder, reported South China Morning Post. This Italian man, living in Hong Kong, initially responded to a message on the popular dating app Tinder. The con artist, impersonating a female investment broker from Singapore, quickly moved their interactions to WhatsApp and a romantic relationship began to develop online. The victim was soon convinced to set up an account on a bogus trading website to invest in digital money.
Between March 6 and 23, the victim was coaxed into transferring HK$14.2 million (over Rs 14.8 crore) into nine different bank accounts over 22 transactions. The con artist claimed that investing in digital money could provide high returns. The victim grew suspicious when he could not retrieve his money and so-called profits. He reported the matter to the police who launched an investigation into the case.
Under the Theft Ordinance, the case has been categorized as “obtaining property by deception”, which is a criminal offense that can result in a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The case is one among many where con artists use bogus trading websites to scam unsuspecting victims. In fact, such fraudulent investment websites or apps introduced to scam victims show rising cryptocurrency or stock prices and returns, but the information presented is fake and controlled by criminals. Positive returns in such investment accounts are designed to coax victims into investing more money. The fraud is also known as the “pig-butchering scam.”
Explaining what this means, South China Morning Post quoted the police website stating, “Initially victims can make small profits, but after putting in more money they end up suffering huge losses.”
This case is not unique. Losses from cryptocurrency scams have doubled to HK$1.7 billion (Over Rs 17.79 billion) in Hong Kong alone last year. The amount of money lost through romance scams in the city rose by 16 per cent to HK$697 million (about Rs 72.9 crore) last year while the number of cases has gone down by seven per cent. Online scammers pose as merchants or professionals in fields such as engineering, banking, or the military, charming their victims before asking for money for different reasons.
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