Hong Kong woman loses nearly HK$2 million in ‘pig butchering’ romance scam

A 47-year-old woman in Hong Kong lost nearly HK$2 million (US$254,778) in two weeks to an online romance scam, according to police, despite being warned by friends that the man she was chatting with could be a swindler.

Police said on Monday that the woman’s case was one of more than 50 online love scams they had received reports about in the past two weeks, with a total value of more than HK$16 million.

The scam began when the woman received a WhatsApp message from a stranger. The man claimed to be a gold investment professional in the United States, and the two quickly began an online romantic relationship.

According to a post on the force’s CyberDefender social media page, the woman was persuaded to invest in gold and transferred her life savings of HK$300,000 into three private bank accounts.

After receiving the funds, the scammer asked her to invest more. The victim then borrowed more than HK$1.6 million from her friends and converted it into the Tether (USDT) stablecoin to deposit into a specified e-wallet.

Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency token that maintain a fixed value by being pegged to a reference asset, typically fiat currencies such as the US dollar.