31st July 2026 – (Hong Kong) A company styling itself as a Vietnam‑rooted coffee investment brand entered the Hong Kong market in late 2025 with high‑visibility promotions, only to draw a regulatory warning in July 2026 amid mounting complaints from investors. Marketed as “Fun Coffee”, the venture projected the image of a legitimate coffee‑related enterprise while allegedly operating a cryptocurrency investment scheme that promised eye‑watering annual returns of up to 222 per cent. By the end of July, withdrawals reportedly stalled and operations appeared to unravel.
Investor chat groups formed across the city reported more than 370 affected individuals in one forum alone, with multiple groups together counting around 4,000 participants. Aggregate losses were alleged to exceed HK$1 billion, according to those groups, with many participants saying they were introduced by acquaintances and instructed to download an app to complete so‑called “tasks” and transfer funds via virtual assets in exchange for hefty interest. Several users said they could not log back into their accounts once problems surfaced.
One Hong Kong woman in her 50s said she discovered only after media enquiries that her personal information had been used to register her as a shareholder and director of a local company bearing the Fun Coffee name. She said she had previously been recruited to promote the app within her neighbourhood network, ultimately developing more than one hundred “downline” accounts, and subsequently reported the matter to police, citing concerns that her identity had been misused.
Public records showed three Hong Kong companies bearing the Fun Coffee name incorporated between late 2025 and early 2026. Reporters who visited the group’s listed Kowloon Bay headquarters and a Mong Kok storefront in late July found the premises vacated with landlord notices citing rent arrears from the start of the month. The firm had earlier presented itself as headquartered on Vietnam’s Phu Quoc island, boasting more than US$1 billion in funds and a workforce of over 5,000, comparing itself to major coffee chains and claiming plans to list.
Regulatory and law‑enforcement actions intensified through July. On 13th July 2026, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission issued a public warning that the “Fun Coffee GCM project” appeared to be a suspicious investment, cautioning that participants risked losing their entire principal. Separately, Vietnamese state television reported in May 2026 that the country’s Ministry of Public Security had warned the operation bore the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme. By late July, Hong Kong Police said they had received 115 reports related to the case, which has been handed to the Commercial Crime Bureau’s deception investigation team.
The episode followed a burst of publicity by the group in December 2025, including a local running event and leaflet distributions framed as anti‑fraud awareness. Behind the promotional gloss, however, the core model described by investors relied on high‑yield promises linked to cryptocurrency transfers and app‑based tasks—features that regulators and law‑enforcement agencies have repeatedly flagged as red flags for fraud. As investigations continue, those affected are urging others to exercise extreme caution with any scheme touting extraordinary returns, opaque structures and pressure to recruit new participants.