Romance-Linked Cryptocurrency Investment Scam with Fake Balances and Withdrawal Block
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.
The scammers used a romantic connection to build trust, showing fake profits to lure the victim. They restricted communication to a chatbot, avoiding real contact. The withdrawal was blocked with fabricated violations, forcing the victim to deposit more money to access funds, a common trick to keep victims trapped.
$16,000
The victim recognized the scam and avoided further losses by refusing to deposit the requested additional funds.