Engineer loses $8.5m in online romance scam involving fake Taiwanese Dancer

Police said they received at least 18 reports of online romance scams in the past week, with total losses exceeding HK$13 million.
One case involved a middle-aged engineer who lost HK$8.5 million after being lured by a scammer posing as a Taiwanese dancer. In a post on its “CyberDefender” anti-scam page on Monday.
The engineer met a woman claiming to be a dancer at a private club in Taiwan through a dating app.
They interacted frequently on WhatsApp and he gradually fell for her.
A scammer posing as the dancer’s “manager” then intervened, repeatedly persuading the victim to transfer money under the pretexts of buying “popularity votes” for a dance exam, club membership fees, asset checks and meeting arrangements, otherwise he would not be allowed to meet the dancer.
Within half a month, the victim transferred more than HK$8.5 million in total to 17 bank accounts designated by the scammers.