Hong Kong police have raided and arrested a criminal suspected to be a Triad member in an alleged $102,067 crypto scam, local media reported on Friday.
Police Arrest Alleged Crypto Fraudster
The Triad organization (14K) is an underground criminal group based in Hong Kong. The group been active since 1945 and conduct all sorts of criminal activities including drug trafficking, counterfeiting, illegal gambling, bookmaking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, identity theft, money laundering and more.
According to investigations carried out by the authorities, the suspect, 28, deceived an investor, 30, by telling him to pay some money to buy Tether (USDT), a popular stablecoin.
Over $100k Gone
On the day of the occurrence, the suspect met the victim on Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui on Saturday night and collected $102,067 in cash from him, leaving the place and promising to transfer the digital asset to his crypto wallet.
The victim discovered the transaction was a scam after he did not see any Tether (USDT) value in his crypto wallet. He then proceeded to inform authorities at 9.30pm on Saturday.
Authorities were able to trace and arrest the suspect on Thursday in a public housing flat in Tin Shui Wai using surveillance camera footage. They confiscated about $5,105 believed to be proceeds from the scam.
Reports also noted that local police are also placing a watch on another Triad member who had reached out to the victim online to lure him into conducting fake transactions.
Crypto–Related Crimes on the Rise
As cryptocurrency continues to grow significantly and go mainstream, criminals have targeted the asset class as a tool to carry out all sorts of illicit activities.
Earlier this week, Coinfomania reported that Polish authorities busted and arrested a criminal group smuggling drugs worth $4.6 million to the United States.
The report noted that the group carried out its operations using regular courier services and their clients paid them using cryptocurrencies.
In 2021, criminals laundered over $8 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, a 30% rise from the previous year, Chainalysis data revealed.
Source: https://coinfomania.com/police-arrest-alleged-crypto-fraudster/#utm_source=rss&%23038;utm_medium=rss&%23038;utm_campaign=police-arrest-alleged-crypto-fraudster