Hong Kong - An Italian financial consultant living in Hong Kong was recently tricked into a cryptocurrency investment platform by an online lover and cheated of more than HK $14 million in 5 weeks.

It is reported that the victim, a 55-year-old man living in Hong Kong's Western district (also known as Western District), in mid-February, he met the woman claiming to be a Singaporean investment broker on a dating app, and the two continued to contact each other through social media.

They shared the same interests and talked happily.

When the time is ripe, the other party claims that investing in digital currencies can offer high returns, deliberately luring the victim to set up an account on a fake trading website to invest in digital currencies.

Between March 6 and 23, he transferred HK $14.2 million to nine designated bank accounts, making a total of 22 transactions.

As with all black platform scams, when he tried to withdraw money, he found that the principal and profits in his account were completely unable to withdraw.

He realized he had been cheated, and at the end of March, he alerted the Hong Kong police.

Hong Kong has recently seen a number of similar "love killing pig dishes".

In February, a 63-year-old investment manager who inherited his father's estate lost HK $12.8 million in an online love scam.

It is reported that the scammer claimed to be a female cryptocurrency investment expert, and also lured the victim to set up an account on a fake trading website to invest in virtual coins.

Last year, the amount of money Hong Kong people lost to relationship scams rose to HK $697 million from HK $599 million in 2021.

Police said scammers are constantly changing their tactics, and such fraudulent investment websites or apps introduced to scam victims show rising cryptocurrency or stock prices and returns, "initially, victims can make small profits, but after investing more money, they end up suffering huge losses." This type of fraud is also known as the 'pig-killing scam'."