The fraudsters are usually based on the mainland but use a VPN to change the virtual location and artificially place the profile elsewhere. Hong Kong is a commonly chosen destination as it is seen as a desirable, successful, civilised society.I matched with one person claiming to be from Hong Kong. Their distance was of so many thousand kilometres away but sometimes changed to 20km, most likely because of the “Global” or “Passport” settings on Tinder, or just a straight up VPN. Their bio said “I like to travel, I like to make some sincere and friendly friends, not dating and love.”We got chatting and “she” claimed to own a beauty salon in Hong Kong as well as a clothing factory in China. Her visit to a UK fashion convention had apparently been cut short because of COVID-19. COVID-19. It wasn’t long before the subject of WhatsApp came up and we took the conversation on there.