Hong Kong police say a scammer stole HK$3.5 million worth of virtual assets from Binance accounts using fake text messages.
Scammers use phishing text messages sent by the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, to hack into their clients and their passwords before stealing virtual assets from their accounts, Hong Kong police have said. The latest scam came after the force issued a warning on its CyberDefender Facebook page on Monday, urging investors to stay vigilant. In the past two weeks, 11 Hong Kongkongers reported to police that virtual assets with an estimated value of HK$3.5 million had been stolen from their Binance accounts. ''The fake message warned'' that users' accounts will be disabled if the users fail to do so, police said on their CyberDefender page. Passwords are then used by scammers to transfer virtual assets out of their accounts. Police have urged investors to trade with licensed cryptocurrency exchanges in Hong Kong for better protection. Police urged residents to use the Scameter search engine, available via the CyberDefender website, to search for scams. It provides information to the public, enabling the public to identify suspicious web addresses, emails, platform usernames, bank accounts and mobile phone numbers or IP addresses. In 2022, police handled 18,743 deception cases, a decrease of 52 percent from 10,326 in the same period in 2022.