A local man in his thirties fell victim to a credit-for-sex scam at the weekend, losing a total of 3.2 million patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man said in a regular press conference yesterday.
Chan said that the man met a woman on a website on Saturday who claimed to provide sexual services. After chatting with the woman, the man paid 50 yuan (58 patacas) to become a member of the website and received a refund of 60 yuan afterwards. The website’s “customer service” then asked him to complete several “tasks” to acquire the sexual services, which involved several cryptocurrency transactions and refunds.
According to Chan, the man transferred 43 crypto coins for the first task and got 360 yuan back. Chan said each crypto coin was worth US$1 (8 patacas).
After the second task, the “customer service” told the victim that he had made a mistake and needed to redo it. The man then transferred crypto coins eight more times, with increasing amounts each time.
Chan noted that despite getting no refunds, the man continued transferring cryptocurrency, with the last transaction being 182,000 crypto coins. Chan added that all the transactions were done in a single day.
The man finally suspected he was being scammed when he received no refund after the tenth transaction. After losing contact with both the woman and the “customer service”, he reported the case to the police on Saturday, saying he had lost 400,000 crypto coins, worth 3.2 million patacas, according to Chan.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chan Wun Man looks on during yesterday’s regular press conference.
– Photo: William Chan
