Scam Type

Romance Scam, Pig Butchering Scam, Fraudulent Trading Platform, Advance Fee Scam

Red Flag

- Account freezes and hacker claims.
- Fake recovery offers with fees.

Details

The victim joined a trading blog on social media, where he met two individuals—“Mr. Charlie” and “Tina”—claiming to represent Fitbela Epro Limited, a UK-based Forex trading firm. They persuaded him to open a Forex trading account on the Meta 5 Trading platform and promised high returns. The victim initially invested $10,000 and was told the account had grown significantly, prompting him to invest even more. Following their direction, he eventually sent a total of $92,000 via wire transfer. Later, they claimed his account was now worth $200,000. When the victim attempted to withdraw his funds, he was told he needed to pay $87,000 in taxes before any money could be released. At that point, he recognized it as a scam.

Scammer Behaviour

Wove a web of trust with a fake persona, pivoted to WhatsApp, orchestrated crypto transfers, inflated profits, stalled withdrawals with freezes and fees, fabricated a hack, and deployed a secondary scammer for further extortion.

Potential Lost Funds

$183,000

Final Outcome

All funds lost; site vanished; incident reported.