28th January 2023 – (Hong Kong) A woman mistakenly believed that a netizen could send her a cat from overseas, and she fell into an insurance compensation scam and lost more than HK$6 million. On Tuesday (24th), a woman (58 years old) reported to the police that she had met a woman on an online platform earlier, and the other party claimed that she could give her a foreign cat as a gift, and told the victim to contact another person who claimed to be a shipping company staff member. The victim then followed the person’s instruction to pay the relevant fees to arrange for the transportation of the cat. The other party later stated that the cat died during the transportation, and the victim could get insurance compensation of about US$150,000 (equivalent to about HK$1.17 million). The victim was told by another person who claimed to be a foreign bank employee that she needed to pay administrative fees to obtain relevant compensation, so she followed the instructions and deposited virtual currency with a market value of about HK$6.07 million into an electronic wallet designated by the other party in 40 tranches. The swindler then demanded more money from the victim. The victim suspected that she had been scammed and reported the case. After preliminary investigation, the case was classified as “obtaining property by deception”.