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Hong Kong police issued a warning after 11 local Binance users fell victim to phishing scams sent via text messages.
In a post dated October 9 on its Facebook page, CyberDefender, an arm of the Hong Kong police, warned that people impersonating Binance have been distributing fraudulent text messages to users.
These messages falsely claim that users must click a link to verify their identity by a specific deadline, otherwise their accounts would be deactivated.
Once users clicked the link and seemingly confirmed their personal information, the hackers gained full control of their Binance accounts and emptied the assets from their wallets.
According to police, 11 Hong Kong-based Binance clients have already reported combined losses exceeding $446,000 (HK$3.5 million) in the past two weeks.
Police have asked any user who believes they have received a potentially fraudulent message to log suspicious messages in the “fraud prevention” section of their official site. website.
Additionally, they have shared a link to a recently published list of approved virtual asset trading platforms, compiled by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
The cryptocurrency landscape in Hong Kong is already in a state of disarray following the revelation of fraudulent activities by the JPEX exchange. Estimated losses from this scandal have soared to around $180 million, and local authorities received more than 2,300 complaints from victims of the exchange.
The fallout from the JPEX scandal led to multiple arrests in Hong Kong and forced authorities to step up their crackdown on illegal cryptocurrency offerings.
Earlier this year, the SFC ordered that all crypto exchanges operating in Hong Kong must be licensed. To date, only HashKey and OSL have received this license.
Despite its intense publicity, JPEX did not actually apply for a license, prompting the SFC to publish a full list of companies that applied, as well as expanding its list of suspicious platforms.
While Binance does not have a base in Hong Kong, it operates several regional headquarters globally. Its parent company is registered in the Cayman Islands.
