Crypto Crime in Hong Kong surges 90% within 12 months 

Officially the Hong Kong police disclosed that the use of cryptocurrencies surged rapidly in fraud activities in between 2022 to 2023. 

Since mid-2023, Hong Kong has become a friendly place for cryptocurrency trading, with a proper systematic regulatory framework in place. This jurisdiction is different from mainland China, where all crypto trading has been banned since December 2021. Even though Hong Kong is part of China, Chinese government agencies have chosen to support cryptocurrency adoption.

On 1 July 2024, According to the Hong police data, crimes involving cryptocurrencies in Hong Kong have gone up a lot, from 2,336 cases in 2022 to over 3,415 cases in 2023, totalling HK$4.33 billion. Over 90% of these were fraud cases. 

In the shared information, there are mainly two types of virtual asset service platforms fraud used by the fraudsters.

In the first kind of scam, fraudsters trick victims into sending anonymous cryptocurrency to their virtual wallets. Since cryptocurrencies are not controlled by central banks or governments, users don’t need to provide personal information to set up a private wallet, making it hard for the police to trace their identity.

In the second kind of crypto scam, fraudsters use overseas platforms which are regulated by Hong Kong but make it even more harder for the police to track and stop the money.

All these fraud records show that Hong Kong’s crypto regulatory framework is failing to regulate the crypto sector perfectly. 

If such types of crypto-related scam activities will surge in the jurisdiction of Hong Kong then surely the Hong Kong authorities will impose more strict rules against crypto-related financial activities, to prohibit the involvement of bad actors in the crypto space.

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