British Columbia Resident Loses More Than $7 Million in Crypto Scam

A senior citizen in British Columbia, Canada is the latest victim of a cryptocurrency scam. It’s estimated that the victim, who remains unnamed, has lost more than $7 million.

British Columbia Citizen Conned Out of Tons of Crypto

British Columbia authorities have stated this is arguably one of the worst digital currency scams of its kind. The illicit actors in question pulled what they’re calling a “double barreled” approach. First, they stole the old woman’s money. From there, they stole more by claiming to be a team of people that could help her get the money back.

Corporal Philip Ho with the RCMP’s Economic Crime Unit in British Columbia made the following statement:

Fraudsters are often changing tactics. In this case, it appears they were able to tailor the scam to target this victim in using information about her career and business history to first build trust and friendship. These scammers went to great lengths over many months to defraud this senior and convince her these were legitimate investments. These types of frauds often go unreported, but it’s important that victims come forward to police so we can investigate and help support victims, who are at a higher risk of being re-victimized once they have been defrauded by a scam.

The scam began in the spring of 2022. The fraudsters reached out to the woman and said they were looking for data regarding her personal business history. To be fair, this should have been a huge red flag. When was the last time you were contacted and asked questions about this? These kinds of calls don’t normally happen unless you’re enduring a job interview, meaning it was a huge mistake to believe the questions were real.

Nevertheless, the scammers initiated a conversation and built trust in the victim, chatting with her in Chinese via email, phone calls, and even by text. From there, they convinced her to invest millions of dollars into a new digital currency project online, and she would be able to check the ongoing balance of her account through (phony) apps the scammers provided to her.

Eventually, she sought to take some money out of the account when she saw she had allegedly made some returns, though this is when the scammers cut off all communication. Interestingly, a police report suggests that despite being threatened multiple times throughout her chats with the scammers, the woman continued to invest money in the platform. The report said:

The victim, who was pressured and threatened throughout the course of the scam, invested more, but unfortunately, this was also a scam.

Even More Funds Disappear

The scammers later got in touch with her again and pretended to be a team that could help her recover the lost funds.

This resulted in even more money being lost.

Tags: British Columbia, crypto, scam