If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
That’s the warning from police for investors, urging them to be be cautious when putting their money into Cryptocurrency schemes.
It comes after a Sunshine Coast man was scammed out of $100,000 through an online trading platform.
The 54-year-old man invested $50,000 into a Cryptocurrency online investment scheme in October last year, offering people an opportunity to profit through a legitimate trading platform – however police say the account had been set up by scammers.
The scheme was devised to make the victim believe the trades and profits were genuine, when in fact the data was misleading.
As part of the scam the man was informed he would not be able to draw on the false profits for a 12 month period.
After six months of being led to believe the scheme was genuine, the victim was convinced to invest another $50,000 into the scam, with an offer to increase his level of investor membership to Platinum.
The original account was set up by the scammers through a legitimate online platform meaning the scammers also had withdrawal access under the provisions of the account.
Senior Sergeant Craig Mansfield from Sunshine Coast Criminal Investigation Branch says this type of fraud has been occurring in Queensland and internationally.
“Victims need to be aware of jurisdiction issues and the anonymity of crypto account holders,” Senior Sergeant Mansfield says.
“In this instance, the victim did not set the online trading coin wallet up, so it’s believed the withdrawals were undertaken by anonymous entities shortly after the deposits were made.”
Victims are often diverted from email for contact to an App based encrypted communication platform that cannot be intercepted by police.
“Whilst police can investigate, given that most scammers are offshore, it is unlikely we can recover funds or even commence proceedings locally, however we will work with other jurisdictions nationally and internationally to further these investigations where possible.”
Potential investors are warned to be wary of the promise of significant returns or guaranteed returns, especially those with time limitations on when they can withdraw, which gives fraudsters a longer period to operate.
