The scammers use various tactics to build trust with potential victims. They claim to have ties to reputable institutions such as academies, business schools, or wealth institutes. Individuals with titles like professor, advisor, or assistant manage WhatsApp or Telegram groups in which interested parties are invited to join. These groups also include other members posing as investors, some of whom may be bots or part of the scam.
Once in the group, victims are directed to a website that facilitates cryptocurrency trading and are urged to invest using the information provided by the group. The scam escalates when the scammers offer victims high-dollar loans or lines of credit to meet the capital requirements for their offerings. These loans are informally processed on messaging platforms, and if a victim declines the offer, the “assistants” borrow cryptocurrency funds on their behalf and deposit them into the victim’s trading account. To provide false legitimacy, the scammers present a screenshot as proof of the transaction, but investigations reveal these transactions to be fake as they do not have records on blockchain explorers.
Victims are told they can repay the loan using profits made on the platform. However, when they attempt to do so, their accounts are frozen, and they are pressured to repay the loan from their own pockets. Additionally, the scammers threaten legal action against victims who refuse repayment. The authority in charge has not received any reports of investors successfully withdrawing their funds after repaying the loan.
Furthermore, the scammers employ coercion tactics by demanding cryptocurrency payments from victims under the guise of owning damaging videos that could harm their reputation.
