Hong Kong police arrest 4 people suspected of defrauding a businessman by giving him fake banknotes in exchange for digital currency. Why is this a cryptocurrency fraud?
It seems that hardly a day goes by without some cryptocurrency fraud or other hitting the headlines. Today, it’s a “cryptocurrency fraud syndicate” that entailed a con equivalent to $200,000.
According to the South China Morning Post, a businessman was duped into transferring $200,000 in USD Tether stablecoins to an e-wallet account last month.
The swindlers allegedly set up a meeting with the 27 year-old businessman through WhatsApp. During the meeting two bundles of HK dollars wrapped in clingfilm were placed in front of the victim as payment for the stablecoin transaction.
The man representing the swindlers then left, making the excuse that he was going off to fetch a cash-counting machine. When he didn’t return, the businessman checked the currency bills and found that besides the top two bills of every pile, the rest were bogus bills.
Now, the Hong Kong police say that they have detained 4 suspects connected to the fraud, and Tang Chun, Senior Inspector of the Kowloon City district crime squad, appealed to the public to “stay alert” citing a “recent string of cryptocurrency scams.”
Opinion
Just to highlight this recent case, it has to be mentioned after reading the story that the actual bogus currency being used in this particular scam was in fact the Hong Kong dollar.
Here the bogus currency was being used as one half of the transaction, while the other half contained the perfectly legitimate crypto stablecoins. This begs the question: “Why was the title and the thrust of the story all built around a cryptocurrency scam?”
The South China Morning Post article was also punctuated with two links to other stories that had “cryptocurrency scam” in the titles.
It can only be imagined that the phrase “cryptocurrency scam” is what sells the news in these times. Mainstream media is always full of these types of stories, and the average Joe or Jane who reads them is probably suitably horrified and will probably not touch crypto with the proverbial barge pole.
If however, the crypto scams were put against the fiat currency scams, it would likely be that the fiat scams would win by a landslide. Our world is dominated by large media outlets that have absolutely no incentive to rock the boat and print anything that runs counter to the system-backed narrative, so stand by for more of the same.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.