Hong Kong police arrest Chinese man who planned to set himself on fire over $76K crypto loss

A 34-year-old mainland Chinese man was arrested inside a McDonald’s after police found a lighter and flammable liquid on him. 

Authorities say the man had planned to set himself on fire in the public space after experiencing cryptocurrency investment losses of 500,000 yuan (approximately $76,000). 

Crypto losses are driving dangerous decisions 

A 34-year-old mainland Chinese man, surnamed Li, invested in a cryptocurrency trading platform between February and May 2026. After losing the equivalent of roughly $76,000, he filed repeated complaints on the platform itself.

Li arrived in Hong Kong on May 13. The following morning, the platform’s staff noticed that he disclosed his travel itinerary through some posts and expressed intent to take his own life. The platform contacted Hong Kong’s Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, which tracked Li to a McDonald’s in Admiralty.

Officers recovered two containers of flammable liquid and determined he had planned to eat lunch at the McDonald’s before walking to nearby Hong Kong Park to carry out the act. 

Since no one was injured and no evacuation was required, Li was arrested on suspicion of possessing items with intent to destroy or damage property. Hong Kong Island’s Regional Crime Unit is handling the case.

Cryptopolitan reported the death of a 32-year-old investor, who lost roughly $1.2 million, earlier this year. The Hong Kong postgraduate student identified as Chen jumped from his family’s apartment after admitting to his father that he had lost approximately HK$10 million ($1.2 million) in failed crypto trades. 

Chen had just returned from studies in the United Kingdom for a medical evaluation when the incident occurred.

More than 80 online investment fraud cases were reported in a single week in late April this year. The combined losses exceeded HK$80 million ($10.2 million).

Can authorities recover stolen funds? 

Authorities globally have stepped up efforts to combat crypto fraud, but as Cryptopolitan previously reported, victims rarely get their money back in full. 

For instance, the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it had begun a compensation process for victims of AirBit Club, a crypto pyramid scheme that defrauded investors under the guise of virtual currency mining. 

The DOJ said it has forfeited over $400 million in assets from the scheme’s operators, who were sentenced in 2023, but the AirBit Club scheme operated for years before charges were filed, and the compensation process launched nearly six years after the fraud began.

The forfeited assets are now available for victims to claim, but the DOJ has specific eligibility criteria that victims must meet. 

The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, published in April 2026, recorded more than 181,000 cryptocurrency-related complaints from Americans, with reported losses exceeding $11 billion. Investment fraud accounts for nearly 49% of all scam-related losses.

Americans over 60 reported approximately $7.7 billion in total cyber fraud losses, up 37% from the previous year. However, the FBI notes that the reported figures likely represent only a fraction of actual losses since reporting is voluntary.

The bureau’s Operation Level Up initiative, launched in 2024 to proactively identify active fraud victims, has contacted more than 8,000 people and prevented an estimated $500 million in additional losses.

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