Crypto scammers today impersonated a Hong Kong official on X, formerly Twitter, and pumped and dumped a fraudulent meme coin that they pushed as an "official" Hong Kong token called "KONG."
An account on X masquerading as Chief Executive John Lee claimed that the "National Hong Kong Coin" was going to make its debut on Solana. The now-deleted post said the supposed Hong Kong token marked "a new era in digital innovation and economic growth," and would "transform the future of finance."
On Facebook, Lee warned this was "deliberately fraudulent"—and vowed those initiating him would be "severely reprimanded."
Those warnings, however, apparently went unheeded by a few eager meme coin traders. The token launched in the early afternoon hours in Hong Kong, reaching a peak market cap of just over $320,000 within minutes of its launch, according to data from Dexscreener. The price of the KONG token then collapsed by 96% seconds later as the token's deployer cashed out, selling roughly $24,000 worth of the token in a single clip.
"The incident has been referred to the police for follow-up investigation. I advise the public to be careful to seek proof, verify authenticity, and guard against being deceived," Lee said in his Facebook post.
Worryingly, the bogus Hong Kong chief executive X account had more than 40,000 followers and a gray checkmark, which denotes it belongs to a verified government official.
This is the latest in a long line of scams targeting world leaders, and attempting to con crypto enthusiasts into investing in fake meme coins.
Just last month, fraudsters impersonating Mohammed bin Salman prompted the "Official Saudi Arabia Memecoin."
This came after an account belonging to the Saudi Law Conference was hacked, and edited to make it seem like it belonged to the crown prince.
Another incident in February saw a scammer pretend to be Bermuda's premier David Burt, with an X post unveiling the "Bermuda National Coin."
That came from an account that had four times as many followers as the real Burt. And just like the fake Hong Kong chief executive account, it had a gray checkmark.
Such announcements have become increasingly difficult for crypto enthusiasts to navigate, as some of them have been genuine.
The president of the Central African Republic recently used X to launch the $CAR meme coin, and described it as an "experiment" designed to support national development and put the country on the world stage.
Argentina's president, Javier Milei, is currently facing an investigation after he posted about the Libra meme coin on X, only to delete it hours later.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.