Hong Kong police arrested 13 people after two mainland Chinese men were beaten on Hong Kong streets when they demanded their money back from an investment company.
The two victims claimed they and six other mainlanders, aged from 27 to 45, were cheated out of 14 million yuan (just over US$2 million) in a London gold scam, Oriental Daily reported.
The eight victims filed a police report last October claiming they were scammed after investing in precious metals through an online platform provided by a Chinese company since 2015. They said they believed the platform was set up by a Hong Kong company.
The victims claimed that they had made profits before but since October last year, they couldn’t withdraw any money from their accounts.
They suspected that they had been scammed and thus alerted police in Hong Kong.
On March 9, one of the victims went to the company’s office at Exchange Square in Central to protest but he was beaten by five men after in a toilet.
On May 21, another victim was beaten by seven men on a street in Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui after he protested at the Central office. One attacker stood aside and filmed the assault with his cellphone. The whole process was captured by a surveillance camera, Apple Daily reported.
Police officers arrested 13 men aged from 14 to 32 on suspicion they had attacked the two mainlanders.
The anti-triad squad raided the company’s offices in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui on Tuesday and seized documents and computers for further investigation.