Hong Kong police busted a local crypto fraud group and arrested 27 people, involving students for defrauding victims of HK$360 Million. Amongst the accused were 21 men and 6 women (aged 21 to 34) who were arrested on the suspects of defrauding multiple local and overseas victims during the operation for about a year.
According to the local media outlet, the police informed that the fraud group mainly used online romance methods to lure victims into investing in cryptocurrency and later duped them.
The police said that 6 of the arrested people were graduates from well-known local universities, and 10 have Form 6 education and all of them were relatively young and the mastermind was a 29-year-old gangster, San Ngee Ann.
Young students were hired by the fraud group, and later they were informed of the real business of the fraud group, but the accused students chose to stay when they were lured with a commission of 40% after committing the crime.
Superintendent Yao Yongqin of the New Territories South Regional Crime Headquarters said that the police first received intelligence about the fraud group in August. After two months of investigation, they identified the location of its operation center and the identities of the group members, and took action on 9 October.
Several devices including computers, phones, weapons and luxury watches were also seized from the crime site. All the accused have been released on bail pending further investigation and must report to the police in late October.
The arrest operation codenamed “Code Word” mobilized more than 100 detectives from the New Territories South Region Crime Division, and officers from the Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau helped in collecting evidence related to Internet and cryptocurrency transactions.
