A woman from Toronto allegedly lost $340,000 in a cryptocurrency scam. Her cautionary message to others is to be vigilant and avoid falling for the same scam.
Natalya, who didn’t want to use her full name, said she saw a video last year on YouTube about making money by investing in cryptocurrencies. She felt embarrassed about it.
Natalya said to put money into cryptocurrency because it’s the best way to become wealthy.
She sent a message to the company on their website and then they called her. They talked her into investing $250 and when she saw the money increase, she put in more.
Natalya said, “I believed him and sent him $100,000. ”
The bad person sent her $5,000 and told her to act like she was rich and buy herself expensive diamond earrings. After she did that, she thought the company must be real, so she put another $240,000 into it.
“Watching my money increase made me really happy. I thought, ‘This is a really good way to make money quickly. ‘” Natalya explained
It seemed like she had twice as much money. But when she tried to withdraw it, she couldn’t. That’s when she found out it was fake and she was cheated out of all the money she had invested, which was $340,000.
Natalya said she felt embarrassed to admit that she was tricked into losing a lot of money.
In 2023, Canadian people lost $309 million to investment scams, as reported by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Jason Tschetter started Fraud Hunters Canada after he was tricked out of $81,000 in a cryptocurrency scam.
“We have clients who have lost either $700,000 or $7,000. ” “It depends on what they can receive from people,” said Tschetter.
Tschetter said there aren’t many places for people to get help if they are scammed with cryptocurrency.
Next month, Fraud Hunters Canada will change their name to Cyber Crime Victim Service. They will help people who have been victims of cyber fraud.
“They are going through tough times, such as trying to hurt themselves, having no money, and getting divorced. It’s really hard for many people who contact us,” Tschetter said.
Natalya said she lost a lot of money, $340,000, and it made her feel really bad. She wants to tell her story so that other people can be careful and not lose money too.
“Natalya said she is really sad about this and doesn’t want it to happen to other people. ”
Some people who have been scammed with cryptocurrency are tricked again when criminals call them and promise to return their money. They ask for money at the beginning, promising to get back the lost money, but it’s a lie.
Tag: Bitcoin
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Toronto lady claims that bitcoin scam cost her $340,000
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Man admits hiring hit man to kill 14-year-old in exchange for $20,000 in Bitcoin
A man has confessed to contacting a hit man with the intention of murdering a 14-year-old in exchange for $20,000 in Bitcoin.
The New Jersey man admitted he paid a hit man $20,000 in bitcoin to kill a 14-year-old boy in an effort to prevent him from testifying in his child sex abuse case, NBC News reports.
31-year-old John Michael Musbach pleaded guilty in Camden federal court last week to an indictment that charged him with hiring a killer online. He pleaded guilty to “one count of knowingly and intentionally using and causing another to use a facility of interstate and foreign commerce, that is the internet, with the intent that a murder be committed,” per the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.
Musbach was initially accused of exchanging sexually explicit material with a victim who was 13 during the summer of 2015. According to prosecutors, the victim’s parents learned of the exchange and alerted authorities. Musbach was identified by police in March 2016, and was arrested on child pornography charges following a search warrant on his home in Galloway, New Jersey.
As the criminal case was pending, Musbach attempted to hire the killer through the use of cryptocurrency. Between May 7 to May 20 in 2016, he “repeatedly communicated with the administrator of a murder-for-hire website” on the dark web. “Musbach asked if a 14-year-old was too young to target, and upon hearing that the age was not a problem, paid approximately 40 bitcoin (approximately $20,000 at the time) for the hit,” the release reads.
The administrator of the website was contacted by Musbach multiple times, who was asking when the hit would happen. The admin then asked for $5,000 more, and Musbach attempted to cancel the transaction in an attempt to get a refund. They revealed to him that the site was a scam, and said they would reveal his attempt to hire a killer to authorities.
Musbach is currently facing a potential decade behind bars, and a fine of $250,000. He is set to be sentenced on June 13.
“Mr. Musbach decided to put this matter behind him and accepted his responsibility without a trial,” said his attorney Rocco C. Cipparone. “The more limited sentencing range negotiated in this plea agreement appropriately limits Mr. Musbach’s sentencing exposure for reasons which will be expounded upon at sentencing. We now look forward to putting forth in context at sentencing, detailed mitigating information, and positive information, about Mr. Musbach.”
Source: Complex.com
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Elon Musk’s Tesla lost $140m on Bitcoin in 2022
Tesla made a $140m (£113.5m) loss on its Bitcoin investments in 2022, according to filings.
Tesla put $1.5bn into Bitcoin in early 2021, with chief executive Elon Musk saying it would be accepted as payment.
It changed course a few weeks later, and Tesla has since sold most of its Bitcoin holdings.
It now holds about $184m of Bitcoin.
Mr Musk has been among the most high-profile champions of cryptocurrency, with his pronouncements on social media often driving significant trading activity.
Tesla’s February 2021 Bitcoin purchase caused the cryptocurrency to rise in price by more than 25% to $48,000 – a record high at the time.
It rose again in March 2021, when Mr Musk tweeted Tesla would allow customers to make their car purchases using Bitcoin. This enabled people in the US to secure orders with the equivalent of a $100 deposit in Bitcoin.
But the cryptocurrency subsequently fell by more than 10% two months later, when the firm backpedalled on this plan, citing climate change concerns.
According to the UK Treasury, Bitcoin’s global annual energy consumption is estimated to be roughly 39% of the UK’s – and some estimates put the cryptocurrency’s even higher.
Its price soared to almost $70,000 in November 2022 before crashing by more than 50% when Tesla decided to offload most of its holdings.
Source: BBC
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Sam Bankman-Fried: The founder of FTX arrested in the Bahamas
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been arrested in The Bahamas, according to the country’s attorney general.
He is expected to appear in a magistrates court in Nassau, the Caribbean country’s capital, on Tuesday.
According to police, Mr Bankman-Fried was arrested for “financial offences” against US and Bahamas laws.
FTX declared bankruptcy in the United States last month, rendering many users unable to withdraw their funds.
According to a court filing last month, FTX owed nearly $3.1 billion (£2.5 billion) to its 50 largest creditors.
It is unclear how much people who have funds in the exchange will get back at the end of bankruptcy proceedings – though many experts have warned it may be a small fraction of what they deposited.
The FTX exchange allowed customers to trade normal money for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Mr Bankman-Fried was once viewed as a young version of legendary US investor Warren Buffett, and as recently as late October had a net worth estimated at more than $15bn.
He had become well known in Washington DC as a political donor, mostly to Democrat politicians or groups, supposedly supporting pandemic prevention and improved crypto regulation.
Mr Bankman-Fried will be held in custody “pursuant of our nation’s Extradition Act,” the Attorney General of the Bahamas said in a statement.
“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the US Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY [Southern District of New York]. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan said in a tweet.
Wall Street regulators also said that they would be taking action against Mr Bankman-Fried.
“We commend our law enforcement partners for working to secure the arrest of Mr Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on federal criminal charges,” US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission has separately authorised charges relating to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s violations of our securities laws, which will be filed publicly tomorrow in the Southern District of New York,” he added.
Mr Bankman-Fried had been due to testify about the collapse of FTX before the US Congress on Tuesday.
However, he will now be unable to testify, according to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who said in a statement that she was surprised to hear that he had been arrested.
Mr Bankman-Fried’s lawyer did not immediately reply to a BBC request for comment.
A Statement from the Royal Bahamas Police Force on the arrest of Samual Benjamin Bankman-Fried.
Police wish to inform that 30-year-old SAMUEL BENJAMIN BANKMAN-FRIED of California, U.S.A, has been arrested. pic.twitter.com/Mr85S2fzcN
— Latrae L. Rahming (DOC)🇧🇸 (@latraelrahming) December 13, 2022
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
FTX, the owner and operator of the FTX.COM cryptocurrency exchange, was founded in 2019 by Mr Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader and ex-Google employee Gary Wang.
It became the second largest crypto exchange in the world, trading about $10bn of cryptocurrencies a day.
But on 11 November FTX filed for bankruptcy protection after users pulled $6bn from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal. At the same time, Mr Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s chief executive.
In a series of interviews and public appearances in recent weeks, Mr Bankman-Fried has acknowledged that mistakes were made at the firm, but sought to distance himself from accusations of illegal activity.
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” he said at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit at the end of last month.
The collapse of FTX came during a tumultuous year for the cryptocurrency industry. This year Bitcoin has lost more than 60% of its value, while other cryptocurrencies have also slumped.
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Central African Republic launches Bitcoin hub
The Central African Republic has launched its government-backed cryptocurrency hub called Sango – named after one of the country’s official languages.
President Faustin Archange Touadéra launched the hub on Sunday in a live announcement on social networks.
It follows the country’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in May, only the second country after El Salvador, to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
“Sango means the language of money and wealth. Cryptocurrency helps the poor gain control over their investment,†President Touadéra said.
He likened the project to “digital gold”:
Gold served as the engine of our civilization for ages! In this new age, digital gold will serve the same for the future! @SangoProject is the foundation that we will build on, together as one! Our President is speaking at the #Sango Genesis Event, at 7PM: https://t.co/pdfamwRkz2
— Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@FA_Touadera) July 3, 2022
The specifics are not yet clear, but the project will help people invest in the country’s significant mining resources among other things, according to Mining Minister Rufin Benam Beltoungou.
The project’s website also says that an island dedicated to cryptocurrency will be created on the Oubangui River where investors can invest without paying taxes and have a digital residence.
Many concerns remain about the adoption of cryptocurrency in the country, especially after the collapse of Bitcoin by more than 20% last month.
About 90% of the Central African population does not have access to the internet, although the country has signed an agreement with neighbouring Cameroon to share its fibre optic network in 2023.
The government estimates Central Africa Republic’s natural resources to be worth more than $3 trillion (£2.4 trillion).
But the country has been torn apart by a succession of civil wars for nearly a decade and is one of the poorest in the world.
Source: BBC
