A 55-year-old financial consultant matched with a con artist impersonating a female investment broker in Singapore on Tinder. He was tricked into investing HK$14 million (Rs 14.85 crore) in cryptocurrency.
The victim stayed in touch with the con artist through WhatsApp and they both developed a romantic relationship. The man was coaxed to set up an account on a bogus trading website to invest in digital money.
“The victim was told that investing in digital money could provide high returns,” a source familiar with the case told South China Morning Post.
The man was persuaded to transfer HK$14.2 million into nine designated bank accounts over 22 transactions between March 6 and 23, the police said.
The police are now investing the case as “obtaining property by deception” – an offence punishable by up to 10 years in jail under the Theft Ordinance.
Last month, a software engineer shared how he tried to scam a scammer by telling him that he can make a better website for them. The scammer pretended to be an HDFC bank representative. The man told the scammer that it was easy to figure out that it was a fake website and he could help them design a better website for Rs 20,000.
