A local female clerk in her twenties reported to the Judiciary Police on Friday that she had been cheated out of over 5.5 million patacas in an online investment scam last month, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said at a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Ho, the victim met a male netizen on WeChat on February 24 and they became friends. They later communicated via WhatsApp. The netizen later introduced a purported investment app called “Metatrader5” to her and claimed that the app could help her earn “big money”. The victim then opened an account and deposited 900,000 yuan (1.12 million patacas) and HK$4.28 million (4.41 million patacas) into several bank accounts in the mainland and Hong Kong between March and April 30 to invest in gold futures.
Ho said the victim later wanted to withdraw some of the money from her account but the “customer service” told her that she was required to pay 10 percent of the total amount in her account as “service fee”. However, she was still unable to withdraw any money even after the “service fee” had been “deducted”.
Afterwards, she was unable to contact neither the “customer service” nor her netizen “friend”. She finally realised that she had been defrauded and reported the case to the police.
