Fake WhatsApp group scam costs crypto firm HK$4 million
HK01 · 3 SOURCESabout 2 hours ago2 MIN
Summary
A Hong Kong employee working in cryptocurrency exchange services lost more than HK$4 million after scammers hijacked the person’s WhatsApp account and recreated a fake version of a genuine work chat. The fraud only came to light when the employee checked with a client by phone and learned no exchange request had ever been made.
Key Points
- Police said more than 150 WhatsApp account hijacking cases were reported in the past two weeks, with total losses exceeding HK$15 million.
- In the latest case, the victim worked in virtual-currency exchange and had a WhatsApp group with colleagues and several clients for business communications.
- After taking over the account, scammers blocked the original work group and blacklisted all members, cutting off the victim from contacting them through WhatsApp.
- The fraudsters then created a new group by copying the real group’s name, image, members and profile photos to impersonate the original chat.
- Posing as a client representative, they requested a routine cryptocurrency exchange, leading the victim to transfer crypto to a designated wallet before discovering the client had never made the request.
Why It Matters
The case shows how account hijacking can be turned into a highly convincing business-impersonation scam, especially where staff rely on familiar group chats and routine payment workflows. Police urged the public to enable two-factor authentication, avoid trusting search-engine results blindly, stay off public Wi-Fi or public computers for account logins, and verify any payment instruction received on WhatsApp by calling the other party directly.