Four people, including a 14-year-old boy, were arrested for allegedly using counterfeit banknotes to defraud 11 victims of a total value of HK$8.63 million in cryptocurrency.
The investigation found that the criminal syndicate had been posing as online crypto exchanges and falsely claiming to buy cryptocurrency at prices higher than market prices.
The scammers would show the victims “cash” during the transaction, but the stack of cash was actually the “practice notes” — tools used by bank staff to practice counting banknotes — with only the top and bottom bills being the genuine HK$1,000 banknotes.
Police seized a total of 5,000 practice notes with a denomination of HK$1,000 each and arrested four male Chinese suspects aged 14 to 39 when they went to a self-storage to collect the fake banknotes.
Officers said ten other suspects related to the case had been arrested previously. In total, the scam involves HK$11 million.
The criminal syndicate is said to have a clear division of labor, with two masterminds arranging the counterfeit notes and setting up the fake online crypto exchange.
The remaining suspects were responsible for transporting the counterfeit banknotes and posing as the staff to deal with the clients.
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