Hong Kong Police Alert as Crypto-Crime Doubles in 2021 – Cointelegraph

Given that the cryptocurrency business is rising quickly in many international locations, its downsides are additionally extra noticeable, in specific the rise in criminal activity.

According to the statistics. Hong Kong crypto crime doubled in 2021 – the very best degree ever.

Hong Kong Police Alert as Crypto-Crime Doubles in 2021

In the primary half of this yr, almost 500 crypto crimes had been recorded in the previous British colony, most notably the case the place a person misplaced $ 16 million.

The report discovered that the full injury for 496 circumstances was HK $ 214 million ($ 27.5 million), averaging $ 55.4 thousand per case.

This is in stark distinction to analysis by blockchain analytics agency CipherTrace, which reported a lower in general losses this yr. This exhibits that Hong Kong is changing into a sizzling spot for crypto crime.

Crypto crime in Hong Kong is on the rise

According to Forkast News, the full injury from cryptocurrency in Hong Kong in the primary 6 months of 2021 is greater than double what it was in all of 2020.

Hong Kong police commented on the state of affairs, blaming it on the rising reputation of crypto investments and account lockouts, which implies folks spend a number of time on-line. Police added that criminals would have extra alternatives to flourish in these circumstances.

The native media has been reporting on a number of private crypto heists currently. Last week the South China Morning Post printed an article concerning the theft of a Bitcoin purchaser. Presumably, the deal was made by a peer-to-peer trading platform, though this was not explicitly talked about in the article.

Upon arrival on the trade, the client was met by 4 males, one among whom was armed with a knife. The gang looted a bag containing HK $ 3.29 million ($ 128,500) in money. The sufferer was stabbed in the arm and needed to be hospitalized.

The article covers a number of different related incidents associated to non-public transactions. There is a case the place the vendor is the sufferer this time. After the criminals transferred $ 386.7,000 price of bitcoins, they stole the cash they’d simply delivered to the vendor.

CipherTrace Says Crypto Fraud Is Declining But Defi Is Booming

Despite these troubling incidents, CipherTrace analysis exhibits that by 2021 the variety of circumstances of crypto theft, hacking and fraud has plummeted. However, the report mentions that cryptocurrency is exploding in the decentralized monetary sector.

According to CipherTrace, crypto criminals stole $ 432 million in the 4 months ended April 2021. In addition, 56% of that $ 240 million was DeFi-associated crime.

Their speculations put the full for the total yr 2021 at 1.296 billion US {dollars}. In 2020, the full precise loss by crypto criminals is $ 1.9 billion. And in 2019, it is $ 4.5 billion.

It is that this hypothesis that helps the conclusion that cryptocurrency in common is on the decline.

Commenting on the surge in DeFi crime, Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace, stated the DeFi room was fraught with risks from seedy tasks and insufficient safety of sensible contracts.

“As more and more money pouring into the room from retail and institutional players, the bad guys will find ways to use the hype to lure people into scams, and hackers will look for projects that have already started, vulnerabilities encoded in intelligence. Contract”.

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