Hong Kong police bust love scam that duped victims out of $46 million using deepfakes

Hong Kong police dismantled a cross-border fraud syndicate that allegedly used deepfake technology to swindle over $46 million from victims across Asia through cryptocurrency romance scams. With 27 individuals arrested, the bust includes one of the largest fraud centers ever found in the city and marks the first known case of deepfakes being used in Hong Kong for such crimes.

What happened: Police raided a 4,000-square-foot fraud center in the Hung Hom area on Oct. 9, arresting 21 men and six women aged 21 to 34. The suspects, which included university graduates who majored in digital media, allegedly set up a fake cryptocurrency investment platform to entice victims. “It is rare to find a cross-border fraud center that is quite large, well-organized, has a careful division of labor, and operates physically in Hong Kong,” said Superintendent Yiu Wing-kin. The group faces charges including “conspiracy to defraud” and “possession of offensive weapons.” The investigation continues as authorities collaborate with overseas law enforcement to trace accomplices abroad.
How they operated: The alleged scam, which utilized training manuals in Chinese and English, began with a simple text in which the sender pretended to mistakenly contact the victim. They then fostered fake romances, using deepfake video calls to pose as attractive women. The criminals were instructed to prey on the victim’s “sincerity and emotion,” creating a “tailor-made” persona to manipulate them. The victims, primarily men from Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and India, were eventually lured into investing in the fake platform. The case highlights the growing use of deepfakes in global scams, with pig-butchering romance scams typically run by Chinese criminal groups out of Southeast Asia now a multibillion-dollar industry.

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