<\/p>\n
A 66-year-old Hong Kong retiree lost 6.6 million Hong Kong dollars (roughly $840,000) in a string of three related crypto investment scams after repeatedly trusting self-proclaimed \u201cvirtual currency experts\u201d who reached out via WhatsApp, according to Hong Kong police\u2019s CyberDefender unit.<\/p>\n
In a March 20 Facebook post<\/a>, police said the victim was first approached in September 2025 by a scammer who cold messaged, claiming to be a \u201cvirtual currency investment expert\u201d and promising steady gains if the victim followed his advice.\u00a0The retiree then transferred $180,000 and deposited crypto into a wallet the scammer controlled, only to watch him disappear, prompting the filing of a police report.<\/p>\n The case shows how fraudsters can recycle the same victim through successive schemes that start with \u201cguaranteed profit\u201d pitches and escalate into offers to recover funds that have already been stolen.<\/p>\n \u201cLife has no take two; but scams can have take three,\u201d the CyberDefender team wrote, warning that genuine professionals do not rely on random outreach and that phrases such as \u201cguaranteed returns\u201d and \u201cinside information\u201d are classic red flags.\u00a0<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong><\/em>How US investigators traced $61M in crypto tied to romance scams across wallets<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The retiree then transferred $180,000 and deposited crypto into a wallet the scammer controlled, only to watch him disappear, prompting the victim to file a police report.<\/p>\n \u200bUnwilling to accept the loss, the victim later searched online for another \u201ccrypto expert\u201d who claimed he could help recover the missing funds, but then demanded $75,000 as a security deposit. After the victim paid, that expert also vanished.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> <\/em>OpenClaw devs targeted by phishing\u00a0scam\u00a0promising free \u2018CLAW\u2019 tokens<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n In January, a third supposed specialist messaged the retiree on WhatsApp offering to reclaim both prior losses if the victim bought $585,000 in crypto and sent it to a specified address. Once the victim complied, that scammer disappeared as well, bringing the total losses over roughly six months to approximately $840,000.<\/p>\n The case lands against a broader backdrop of mounting crypto-related crime. Web3 platforms saw about $3.95 billion in losses in 2025<\/a>, with state-linked hackers and weak key security driving much of the damage, according to security firm Hacken.<\/p>\n Authorities worldwide have also flagged new waves of phishing<\/a> and investment fraud, from the FBI\u2019s recent warning over fake FBI tokens<\/a> on Tron to India\u2019s GainBitcoin probe<\/a> and US efforts to forfeit $3.4 million in Tether<\/a> tied to a multi-state investment scam.<\/p>\n Magazine: Influencers shilling memecoin scams face severe legal consequences<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n A 66-year-old Hong Kong retiree lost 6.6 million Hong Kong dollars (roughly $840,000) in a string of three related crypto investment scams after repeatedly trusting self-proclaimed \u201cvirtual currency experts\u201d who reached out via WhatsApp, according to Hong Kong police\u2019s CyberDefender unit. In a March 20 Facebook post, police said the victim was first approached in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[235,203,210,234,231,232,237,238,236,233],"class_list":["post-422511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain","tag-bitcoin","tag-crypto-currency","tag-elon-musk","tag-ethereum","tag-hyperledger","tag-ibm","tag-mining","tag-nodes","tag-spacex","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422522,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422511\/revisions\/422522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Triple \u201ccrypto expert\u201d scam drains retiree\u2019s savings<\/h2>\n
\u200bIncident falls amid rising Web3 fraud<\/h2>\n