A Bulgarian investor has lost a large amount of money to scammers who convinced him that he was putting cash into cryptocurrencies. The scam operated through a call center in what is becoming an established scheme to extract money from victims lured with promises of quick profits in the stock and crypto markets.
Defrauded Bulgarian Crypto Investor Sends Money to Bank Accounts Worldwide
A Bulgarian businessman transferred more than 1 million leva (more than $550,000) to scammers who suggested he could earn big from crypto assets, according to a report by Bulgarian national broadcaster BNT. He was persuaded by a fake consultant to send the amount to accounts at different banks, from Europe to Hong Kong.
The investor was initially contacted by a call center operated by the scammers offering high returns on crypto investments. This communication went on for a while and they were able to convince him that they would triple his money in no time. When the man expressed interest in the proposal, they transferred him to an encrypted chat and set up an online account for him.
“The details of the victim (name and phone number) were probably obtained from a platform on which he registered,” said Commissioner Vladimir Dimitrov, head of the cybercrime unit at the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Interior.
The businessman, whose identity was not revealed by the investigators, was then offered to make a small deposit of €250 that was multiplied several times in a few weeks, in virtual assets. Later, he sent tens of thousands of euros to a Polish, British and Chinese bank.
The call center from which the target person received the initial call in this case was likely located somewhere in the Middle East, Bulgarian officials said. However, the country from which the organizers of the fraudulent scheme operated has not yet been identified.
The scam is part of a recent criminal trend in Europe that involves the use of call centers to lure unsuspecting victims with non-existent opportunities to invest in shares of famous global companies or cryptocurrencies.
In mid-January, authorities in Bulgaria, Serbia, Cyprus and Germany, in collaboration with Europol and Eurojust, dismantled a network of call centers that “lured victims into investing large amounts of money in fake cryptocurrency schemes.” In September last year, Ukrainian police arrested a similar criminal organization that was defrauding investors across Europe.
Do you think this trend of scammers using call centers to extract money from potential cryptocurrency investors will continue? Tell us in the comment section below.
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