A financial manager in Hong Kong used a fake trading platform to invest in gold and cryptocurrencies and lost HK$17.8 million.

A financial manager in Hong Kong was defrauded of HK$17.8 million (approximately US$2.1735 million) after being lured by the lure of HK$2.6 million in “profits” while investing in gold and cryptocurrencies on a fake trading platform. The 57-year-old made "profits" from the previous three months of investments through more than 10 transactions that were transferred into her bank account, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday. The purpose of this payment was to deceive the victim into believing it was a legitimate trading platform, while also serving as bait to lure her into further trading and investing more funds. When the woman was unable to withdraw her funds from the trading platform, she realized she had been scammed and she called the police last week. People familiar with the matter said that several bank accounts from which the scammers collected money from the victim had been previously linked to other scams and had been flagged in the police's anti-fraud Scameter search engine database. If she used Scameter to check before making the fund transfer, , these losses can be avoided. (South China Morning Post)