A HK$94m investment scam linked to ‘Fun Coffee’ in Vietnam being busted

Eight suspects have been detained in a joint operation by Hong Kong and Macao police in connection with a suspected cryptocurrency-related investment fraud linked to a purported Vietnam-based enterprise called “Fun Coffee”, authorities said on Tuesday.

Since July, the ongoing investigation has registered 234 claims — 225 in Hong Kong and nine in Macao — with total projected losses of HK$94 million ($12 million) in Hong Kong and 3.6 million patacas ($445,600.) in Macao.

At a media briefing, Chief Inspector Lo Yuen-shan of the Hong Kong Police Force’s commercial crime bureau said that the force had arrested one man and five women — aged 51 to 64 — on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud between Saturday and Monday.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Police in Macao have taken two women into custody on aggravated fraud charges and are probing nine related cases.

Victims, aged between 32 and 83 and including retirees, reported per-person losses ranging from HK$3,000 to around HK$9.6 million, Lo said.

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Police found that the company had ceased operations at its business premises in Kowloon Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui and other locations. About HK$147,000 in cash, 16 bank cards and six mobile phones were seized.

Having entered the Hong Kong market in late 2025, “Fun Coffee” enticed people to invest in its coffee-based ventures using cryptocurrency, claiming to have developed sophisticated brewing machinery, optimized coffee gene technology, and intelligent irrigation and fertilization systems.

The company claimed that higher investment amounts and longer deposit periods would yield higher returns.

Three investment packages — dubbed “start-up”, “growth” and “voyage” — advertised annual returns ranging from 197 to 278 percent.

The operation also dangled incentives — kickbacks for recruiting close contacts and rewards for regular log-ins — that effectively locked victims into repeat investments.

Concerns from residents emerged in July, prompting investigations that revealed that “Fun Coffee” was a fraud that generated no real profits. Instead, it paid earlier investors with money collected from newer ones.

The scheme collapsed in late July, the same month in which the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong flagged the “Fun Coffee GCM Project” as a suspicious investment product.

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“Some investors were lured by the high returns, while others followed the lead of friends who had apparently made money,” Lo said. “But many of them understood very little about the company, or what their money was being used for.”

On July 20, the mobile platform of “Fun Coffee” went offline, leaving investors unable to withdraw their funds and customer service unresponsive. “Only then did many victims realize they had been scammed,” the police said.

The arrests come amid rising concern over virtual-asset fraud in Hong Kong, which has in recent years posed an increasingly serious threat to residents’ financial wellbeing.

In 2025, one-third of 5,135 online investment fraud cases in Hong Kong — a 30.7 percent year-on-year increase — involved virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies.

In total, online investment scams caused losses exceeding HK$3.58 billion, up 58.4 percent and the highest among all fraud types, according to police.

In a separate online advisory, the Investor and Financial Education Council — an independent public organization and a subsidiary of the SFC — cautioned the public against any investment promising high returns with low risk.

“Investments promising guaranteed high returns at low risks simply do not exist. The higher the potential returns, the higher the risks. Always do your own research before investing,” it read. “What’s more, stay alert and beware of scams.”

Residents are encouraged to consult the SFC’s “List of Suspicious Virtual Asset Trading Platforms” and use the police’s “Scameter” search engine before making any investment decisions.

Anyone suspecting they have been defrauded, or seeking information about scam cases, should contact the Hong Kong Police Force’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre, the council added.

Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com