HONG KONG — A 60-year-old man lost HK$2.8 million in a fraudulent scheme purportedly involving an “environmental waste recycling” project, amid a worrying rising trend in investment scams.
Hong Kong police revealed on its CyberDefender Facebook account that the victim met the scammer through Facebook, and the conversation later moved to WhatsApp.
Posing as an employee of a power company, the scammer falsely claimed that they were cooperating with the State Grid Corporation on an “environmental waste” investment project, luring the victim with promises of substantial profits.
The victim was first instructed to transfer more than HK$1.5 million to multiple personal bank accounts.
When the victim raised doubts, the scammer produced a handwritten “guarantee letter” claiming the scheme was not a fraud, and even showed a forged Hong Kong identity card photo to build trust. This prompted the victim to make further transfers totaling more than HK$1 million.
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Subsequently, a second scammer, posing as a State Grid Corporation employee, contacted the victim via WhatsApp. The scammer presented a forged staff ID and a fake cheque for HK$9 million, which they described as the profit from the victim’s investment. However, the victim was told that additional payments were required to release the money.
Only then did the victim realize they had been scammed, suffering a total loss of more than HK$2.8 million.
Investment fraud
The incident reflects a broader picture, showing a surge in investment fraud across the city in recent times. In the past week alone, Hong Kong police recorded more than 50 investment scam cases, with total losses exceeding HK$30 million, according to the CyberDefender post.
The problem forms part of a wider fraud crisis in Hong Kong. In the first half of 2026, police recorded 20,613 fraud cases, with total losses exceeding HK$3.5 billion.
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Investment scams accounted for 2,151 cases, or roughly 10 percent of all fraud cases, but their financial impact was disproportionately severe: losses reached HK$1.66 billion – nearly half of all fraud-related losses.
The largest single case involved a 67-year-old foreign businessman who lost HK$84.79 million after being lured into a cryptocurrency investment through a fake romance scam on Facebook.
