Listing JPEX Crypto Asset Platform as the first defendant and Web 3.0 Technical Support, an affiliated company, as the second, the pair is also suing "anyone who carried out or assisted in the scheme."
Three others, who are listed as โwallet address holdersโ for three respective accounts on the JPEX platform, are also listed as defendants in the legal document.
Felix Chiu King-yin, CEO of Coingaroo, a cryptocurrency exchange in Hong Kong linked to JPEX, is named as a defendant.
Chan alleges that Chiu received HK$1,850,000 (US$237,179) from her, and that the money was partly converted into 195,499 USDT, a cryptocurrency also known as Tether, in a JPEX wallet.
The plaintiffs said Chan separately made several deposits worth 247,498 USDT into two JPEX wallets between July and August last year.
They found that the assets were withdrawn "within five minutes of making each of the deposits" and subsequently transferred to "many other wallets of unknown holders" before examining their accounts on September 14 last year.
On top of that, they are also seeking another 226,012 USDT, which are said to be cryptoassets that appeared in the plaintiffs' JPEX accounts before being converted to other cryptocurrencies without authorization.
The plaintiffs ask the court to issue an order to trace the lost funds and to grant a court order to move the cryptocurrency to other platforms.
Police launched an investigation into JPEX last September after the Security and Futures Commission identified it as an unlicensed virtual asset trading platform.
As of April, police had received 2,265 complaints from alleged victims and the number of people arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud rose to 11.
Lam, among other social media influencers who helped promote JPEX, was arrested by the police commercial crimes bureau last September but released shortly after.
Technology law specialist Joshua Chu Kiu-wah, who is handling the couple's claims, said the court's findings and observations in the civil case could potentially affect upcoming criminal proceedings.
"In particular, the findings of the civil proceedings could potentially bolster the parallel criminal investigation against the suspects, underscoring the importance of this multifaceted legal strategy for victims," โโhe said.
He encouraged people to consider launching civil proceedings to recover their lost property while they await the results of the force's investigation, as police "cannot return seized funds without a court order from the civil case".
