Romance Scam, Pig Butchering Scam, Fraudulent Trading Platform, Imposter Scam
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.
First: Built trust via unrelated pretext, showed fake gains, stalled withdrawals with maintenance excuses, and claimed untraceable asset transfers. Second: Used wealth displays to lure, showed fake profits, demanded platform taxes, and attempted further theft via emails.
$2,61,000
No funds recovered; site offline; scam reported.