The number of romance scams involving crypto have exploded in recent years. Not long ago, Kevin Sam of Antioch became the latest victim of one such scam, and he’s lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in digital currency funds.
Kevin Sam Has Lost a Lot of Money
Sam says he met a woman online that he’s not naming at press time. She described her as such:
She was very kind. Still to this day, she’s kind of empathetic.
He commented that their relationship continued to grow strong, though they never met each other in person. It wasn’t long before she presented him with a new crypto investing opportunity. She wrote to him and said:
Open the wallet and enter the mining pool.
He listened to her and said he began to see massive returns right away. He commented:
Originally, it started at $2,000. Then it went up to $5,000 almost a week later.
He eventually began to invest more money as things looked good and his portfolio started to boom. He was grateful for her advice and felt that things could really move up. He stated:
At $50,000, I was making $1,000 a day.
He eventually became so intrigued by what he was seeing that he borrowed more than $100,000 from his mother so he could invest more money. However, problems emerged as soon as he tried to withdraw from his stash. In doing this, he was delivered the following message:
You are participating in the 7-day 100,000 USDT gift on the mining pool. Cannot withdraw during the pledge period.
Things eventually became too suspicious. Overall, Sam had more than $200K invested into the platform, and in not being able to remove any of his money, he filed a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), stating:
$225,000 was removed from my crypto Coinbase wallet without consent.
Senior data researcher Emma Fletcher says these kinds of situations are becoming more common. Individuals appear on dating sites as though they are just standard people looking for someone to get close to. Eventually, they convince their new partners to invest in fraudulent crypto projects, and the victims lose all their money or at least enough to leave serious wounds in their hearts and wallets:
The website will be used to encourage them to send more and more until they finally go to withdraw their money and find out that they can’t get it back.
Another Victim in the Books
Dillian Bailliot is the CEO of the investment firm Rizen Holdings. He was also victimized by one such scam, claiming that he met a woman online who convinced him to get involved with a phony crypto trading site. He stated:
My account has been frozen with $1.2 million and they are still trying to beg me to send another $215,000 to release my funds.
