131 Hounax victims scammed out of $110m

Hong Kong's police have received 88 reports in connection to the latest fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform Hounax that saw 131 victims lose up to HK$110 million.

The victims are aged 19 to 78 and the losses in each case ranged from HK$12,000 to as much as HK$4 million.

Police have requested social media platforms to shut down pages related to Hounax and asked telecommunications service providers to block all access to Hounax's websites. They said they will mount an arrest operation after further intelligence analysis and investigation.

Superintendent Rick Chan Wai-kei from police's Commercial Crime Bureau said victims were usually rejected by the platform's agents using different excuses whenever they wished to withdraw money from their accounts, or they would be asked to pay expensive service fees.

The victims couldn't get their money back as the so-called agents have vanished, Chan said

Chan said that police so far have not found any link to the JPEX scandal. The police have received complaints from 2,623 people over the JPEX scam, involving losses of HK$1.6 billion, and 66 people have been arrested.

He also said Hounax claims to be based in Singapore and the telephone numbers start with the area code +65.

Police may cooperate with overseas law enforcement agencies, Chan said.

The Securities and Futures Commission, which regulates cryptocurrencies in Hong Kong, had added Hounax to its alert list for suspicious virtual asset trading platforms on November 1. The watchdog also added Hong Kong Digital Research Institute to the list on Friday, bringing the total number of suspicious firms on the list to nine.