Hong Kong retiree loses $1.67 million after fake WEEX wallet app drains his life savings

A Hong Kong man in his 70s lost more than HK$13 million ($1.67 million) after a WhatsApp stranger posing as a Singapore-based crypto expert convinced him to move funds into WEEX, a fake wallet app disguised as a legitimate exchange.

Hong Kong police disclosed the case this week as one of more than 40 crypto investment scam reports filed with authorities over a single week, with combined losses now topping HK$50 million (roughly $6.4 million). Additional detail on the exchanges and wallet app involved was first reported by Sing Tao’s breaking news desk, which cited the police disclosure.

How the crypto investment scam unfolded

The scheme began in early July, when the retiree received an unsolicited WhatsApp message from someone claiming to be a Singapore-based cryptocurrency investment expert. The stranger pitched a platform boasting favorable exchange rates, low fees, and withdrawals available “any time.”

Trusting the pitch, the man registered accounts on OSL Exchange and HashKey Exchange, two licensed virtual asset platforms in Hong Kong, and used them to purchase Tether (USDT) and Ethereum (ETH). He was then directed to a fake website to download a wallet app called WEEX, where he was told to move his crypto in as “investment capital.”

Between late July and early September, the victim sent the full HK$13 million across eleven separate transfers into the counterfeit wallet, chasing profits the app appeared to show climbing in real time. Convinced the investment was working, he kept adding funds, until withdrawal requests were blocked under a string of shifting excuses. By the time he realized the platform was bogus, his savings were gone.

Police sound the alarm as losses pile up

Authorities disclosed the case through CyberDefender, the Hong Kong police force’s public cybercrime-awareness program, as part of a wider warning about fraud that borrows crypto’s complexity to look credible. Officers say fabricated profit displays remain a signature move in this style of fraud: victims watch a balance climb, deposit more to chase it, and only discover the trap once withdrawals stop working entirely.

This is far from an isolated case. Investment fraud built around fake crypto platforms has become one of Hong Kong’s most persistent scam categories in recent months, frequently launched through cold messages on WhatsApp, dating apps or social media, and dressed up with borrowed legitimacy from real, licensed exchanges.

Police are urging residents to treat unsolicited messages from self-declared “investment experts” with suspicion, avoid downloading investment apps from unverified sources, and confirm any platform’s authenticity through official channels before transferring funds. Once cryptocurrency lands in a scammer’s wallet, recovering it is rarely possible.

For now, the case adds another grim data point to a trend regulators across Asia are racing to contain. As crypto adoption grows, so does the sophistication of the scams built to exploit it, and a single convincing message is often all it takes to trigger a crypto investment scam that wipes out a lifetime of savings.