The US Department of Justice seized BTC extracted from an older man. Phishing scams targeting older adults are becoming a trend in Spain and the US.

The complaint issued by a citizen of Asheville, a city located in North Carolina, reads that the imposters suggested the victim use savings in the pension fund to purchase bitcoin. Thus they stole them, and the victim lost more than $500,000 worth of BTC last year.

Now, the State Attorney’s Office, which works for the US Department of Justice, orders the reimbursement of the money to the victim. According to the statement revealed on March 15, an unprecedented decision appeared after having seized the money from the criminals.

The scammed person is an older adult whose identity remains hidden. The man got deceived through an identity theft technique known as vishing, a type of fraud carried out through telephone calls.

The scammer tricked the victim into believing that he was a government agent during the call. His personal information facilitated illicit operations, such as drug trafficking and money laundering.

Once they seduced the older man, they taught him how to deposit his money into a supposed government account on the Coinbase exchange. Thus, on August 31, 2021, 12.16 bitcoins got transferred to an address managed by the scammers for an approximate value of USD 574,766.

Coinbase and the FBI detected the transfer and labeled it a possible senior financial fraud. The authorities added that after an investigation and a successful civil forfeiture process, the seized cryptocurrency got confiscated by US authorities and will go back to the victim.

They Expedited the Case Because it Was an Older Man

The curious thing, in this case, is that the US prosecutor, Dena J. King, apparently showed her concern about the side effects of the crime and opted for an acceleration in the investigation; not only because the complaint happened on time, but also because it was an older adult.

The special attention offered derives from the “Justice for the Elderly” initiative carried out by the US Attorney’s Office of North Carolina. The money had to go back to the victim in exchange due to his cooperation to solve the case.

Lies, Crimes and Digital Assets

The story of the older man from Asheville is not the only one out there, since a similar story got revealed in El País de España, where the National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) openly expressed their opinion on cases of theft through vishing in the Iberian country.

The statement highlights the imitation of well-known entities to extract personal information through a call is a widespread deceiving activity in Spain. Older adults are one of the primary targets of these scammers and deceivers.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Authorities in China revealed the capture of ten individuals allegedly behind an online pyramid platform that has extracted millions of dollars from users. The suspects received accusations with promising high returns and a juicy income to seduce more victims and invite them to catch new users to the pyramidal scheme.

The report suggests that suspected fraudsters may have deceived unsuspecting investors with more than $15 million or 100 million yuan.

According to revelations in the report, the capture happened after an exhaustive investigation to unveil the illegal activities led by the network. The investigation began right after authorities reported the following digital currencies used to apply the pyramid scheme in Shanghai.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau Economic Investigation Team highlighted that the pyramidal scheme perpetrators strengthened their deceiving strategies by stating that they brought value-added services for virtual currency investment. The scammers also explained to users that their project was a unicorn linked to other global applications.

At Least 60,000 Accounts got Created

However, after the investigation reached an end, Chinese police revealed that the online pyramid scheme, which got created in 2020, counted on overseas servers. According to the report, these servers got controlled by a prominent criminal individual known popularly as “Mou.” Through the false Blockchain technology promoter entity and promising fast evolution and regular payments, Mou and his team gained the possibility of attracting unaware investors.

Mou created an advertising and promotion team to seduce more users and make them pay membership fees to keep disguising the scam and make it more trusted.

This team would also set up social media chat groups that they would implement to make more users join the deceiving activity; personal treatment also played a vital role in the fraud. According to the report made by the authorities, the scammers managed to create more than 60,000 member accounts before falling into the authorities’ hands.

How the Scammers Conducted their Activities

According to Baidu, users first accomplished the platform login and registration through the online invitation code. After rising to around 1,000 platform tokens as an entry fee, they began to receive promotions promising that the victims could earn a significant piece of revenue.

However, the most prominent reward that members of the platform acquired was not the one promised. The victims only received the ones generated by the profits obtained by referring it to other users; these actions denote how a usual pyramidal scheme works.

According to the policies followed by the network, each time a new user enters as a current referred; the user receives direct rewards from the platform linked to a referral policy. If users continue to evolve inside the network, they will also acquire indirect rewards. Also, members inside the network could improve their membership status under the collected assets invested by customers.

By: Jenson Nuñez