This didn't have anything to do with cryptocurrency at all. It sounds like the "victim" never even touched an actual blockchain. He was induced to send money to to a scammer, using the traditional banking system.
Read the text, he transferred the money to Kraken, presumably to buy cryptocurrency that he then sent to the scammers.
According to the article, he first sent the money to Kraken to presumably purchase cryptocurrency there and was later convinced to move the cryptocurrency to a different Hong Kong based platform. The supposed platform in Hong Kong may have just been a front though.
My mistake. I had assumed that the first exchange was also a fake website put together by the scammers with no crypto behind it.
Not true at all. The reason that these scams have become a larger industry than the entire world-wide illegal drug trade is because of how easy and lucrative they are, and that's entirely on cryptocurrency.
By revenue, cryptocurrency is for crime. The couple of anecdotes about someone getting money out of Venezuela with crypto only help to legitimize a wealth transfer to criminals of historic proportions.