Hong Kong woman loses HK$1.2M in WeChat crypto scam

A woman in her 40s in Hong Kong lost HK$1.2 million after a contact on WeChat directed her to a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading website, a post on the Hong Kong police CyberDefender channel shows. She watched a fake portfolio rise in value for about 50 days, made multiple transfers to bank accounts and crypto wallets the scammer controlled, and realized the deception when asked to add more money to withdraw funds.

Police investigators say the woman was contacted by someone posing as a cryptocurrency expert who promised guaranteed high returns. The fraudster helped her open an account on a site that looked professional and displayed real-time prices and growing profits. The operator controlled every figure on the site, and the victim followed instructions to move money several times before the scheme collapsed.

The case is one of more than 70 online investment fraud reports authorities received in a single week, with total reported losses exceeding HK$80 million. Police data published on CyberDefender show online romance-related scams rose 8.2% in 2025, from 1,010 cases to 1,093. One large single-victim case involved a woman in her 50s who lost HK$31 million after being steered to fake crypto investments by someone posing as a prospective tenant on a property platform.

Investigators outline a typical fraud pattern: initial contact on messaging apps or second-hand trading sites, a shift to private chat, frequent contact to build trust, and then links to counterfeit trading platforms or portfolio dashboards. Victims are told to transfer funds to bank accounts or cryptocurrency wallets controlled by the fraudsters. Fake dashboards allow operators to make gains appear and disappear at will. Cryptocurrency transfers complete quickly, are hard to reverse, and generally fall outside standard consumer protections.

Research firms tracking illicit crypto activity report rising use of automation and AI tools in scams. Chainalysis data indicates roughly 60% of deposits into crypto wallets now flow to addresses linked to scams that use AI techniques, up from the prior year. TRM Labs recorded a 456% increase in reports of scams using generative AI between May 2024 and April 2025. Despite those advances, counterfeit trading platforms and controlled portfolio dashboards remain common tools for fraudsters.

Hong Kong police posted details of the latest case to warn the public and said investigations into reported incidents are ongoing.