There is no shortage of people trying to make money from cryptocurrency. The industry has produced several tokens over the years that have brought in impressive gains and, in the case of Bitcoin, even outperformed traditional assets like gold in the 2010s.
Now, we are seeing a new crypto token emerge that could be the next big thing on the scene. Alan Draper reports that investors are always on the lookout for a new cryptocurrency to line their portfolios with. But with this interest in new ways to invest comes new risks. Case in point, a California man has gone to court over what is being called a crypto pig butchering scam.
Details About the Case
The lawsuit, which was filed by Seyed Majid Sadegi in the US District Court for the Central District of California, claims that he fell victim to a scam beginning in 2022. In September of that year, he was contacted by a woman who said she was called Anna.
Anna, who also claimed to be Taiwanese, convinced Seyed to begin investing in crypto. She said that she had made a lot of money trading digital assets and could show him how to do the same. Specifically, she could show him how to make money using a platform she recommended called BankCEX.
At the time, Seyed was already using the popular exchange Crypto.com but Anna convinced him to transfer $7,000 to test the legitimacy of the site. Many of these scams begin like this; convincing the victim to trust them with a smaller amount of money and actually delivering what they promise. The goal of this, however, is to get them to hand over a larger amount of money.
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This is what Anna had in mind and she went as far as showing him fake trading statements. Sadly, it worked and he deposited even more money into the platform. When he tried to withdraw it, he ran into trouble. Anna told him that he needed to deposit an additional $115,000 to cover taxes and fees and it was then that Seyed knew he’d been scammed.
The lawsuit says that he lost a total of 94,794 USD Coin, 113,958 Tether, and 2.54 Ethereum. These are valued at over $300,000. Investigators were able to trace the exchanges that his funds were sent to, including big names like Binance, Circle, Crypto.com, and OKX. Seyed is now suing these exchanges as he believes this is part of a larger scam and coverup scheme.
Navigating Crypto Scam
Incidents like what happened to Seyed are not uncommon, with crypto users at all levels of wealth falling victim to these scams. Because of the relatively lower knowledge of how crypto works and the sophistication of some of these scams, billions of dollars have been stolen over the years. While Seyed’s case isn’t over yet, it does highlight the need for better education and the safeguarding of crypto investors.
Certain non-crypto-related scams see fewer victims each year because we are so aware of them (think the Nigerian prince scam and the like) and it’s been suggested that if we become as aware of crypto scams, the same will happen. Law enforcement also has their work cut out for them as they will see more of these cases and will have to become more adept at investigating and prosecuting them when they happen.
It is clear that this issue will continue as long as the crypto sector remains profitable and each stakeholder has a part to play in combating it.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.