Online fraudsters scammed Hongkongers out of more than HK$200 million (US$25.7 million) in a week last month and used artificial intelligence (AI) to trick a victim into transferring HK$145 million in one of the cases.
Advertisement
Police said the victim, a merchant, wanted to buy cryptocurrency mining equipment used to create digital tokens.
The purchase was negotiated via the WhatsApp messaging app with what the victim thought was a mainland Chinese company.
“During the negotiations, the merchant received what seemed to be WhatsApp voice messages from the financial manager of the company,” police said.
“Following the instructions, the victim transferred about HK$145 million worth of USDT cryptocurrency into a designated cryptocurrency wallet, three times in total.”
Advertisement
The victim later realised the transactions were part of a scam and filed a police report.