Cryptocurrency investment scams are booming again, many people have been scammed out of billions of dong

Taking advantage of the greed and lack of knowledge of some people, scammers use tricks to invite financial investment, especially virtual currency investment, with the lure of prestige and huge profits. Many people have been scammed out of billions of dong.

Many people were scammed out of billions when investing in virtual currency - Photo: TU TRUNG

From the stories of getting rich quick, winning big in just a short time of some people being passed on by word of mouth on the internet. social network Regarding financial investment, especially playing with cryptocurrency - commonly known as virtual currency, many users have "nurtured" dreams and sought opportunities to get rich online. Grasping this psychology, scammers have launched many tricks to set traps.

Investing in virtual currency, being scammed out of billions

Accidentally being brought into a group called "Finance of the Times" on the Telegram application, Ms. V. (Hanoi) was introduced to a series of attractive financial investment activities that many people are participating in. Among them is investing in virtual currency through an exchange called Bitforex.

Observing the group, Ms. V. saw that many other people were also participating and many of them even showed off evidence of huge profits received from investing according to the instructions of the "experts" in the group. With the desire to get rich quickly, Ms. V. continuously transferred investment money according to the instructions of the "experts" in the group to buy virtual currency.

When it was time to close the deal, Ms. V. sold the virtual currency she had bought, but suddenly the system reported an error. She was then instructed by the "experts" to pay taxes, fees, insurance, etc. before she could withdraw the money. By the time she realized she had been scammed, the amount of money Ms. V. had sent to the scammers had reached 2.3 billion VND.

In another case, while participating in the dating app Tinder, Ms. T. (Hanoi) said she met a man who claimed to be a "doctor at a large hospital" in Singapore. After a period of chatting and gaining trust with Ms. T., the doctor invited her to join the virtual currency game.

Ms. T. said that she first deposited 20 million VND and immediately withdrew 30 million VND. She continued to deposit 266 million VND and withdrew 304 million VND. After only 2 deposits, Ms. T. had made a profit of 48 million VND in just 2 days. Seeing that the "bet was too good", Ms. T. continued to deposit 300 million VND and received a notification that "the account won 10.1 billion VND" but could not withdraw the money.

The system informed Ms. T. "must pay 20% of profit in personal income tax". Thinking that she was about to get rich, Ms. T. did not hesitate to immediately pay 1.7 billion VND in personal income tax. Then, she paid 2 billion VND to verify her account to withdraw money and 1.4 billion VND to join the fast withdrawal channel. However, Ms. T. still could not withdraw money. Ms. T. said that she had transferred a total of 5.4 billion VND to the system in just 5 days.

According to security experts, the increasing number of users participating in online dating applications has become a "fertile ground" for scammers. Through online dating applications such as Tinder, EzMatch, Lit Match, Hullo..., scammers make friends with their "prey", chat and build trust.

Next, they will move on to the topic of finance, encouraging people to invest in attractive projects. If they naively agree to pay, the interest will be paid immediately after the first investment to increase trust. "When the victim spends a certain amount of money, the scammers will create many reasons such as: upgrading the VIP package, refunding the investment support fund, removing the security mode, system errors... to appropriate assets," an expert warned.

Beware of invitations

Information from Hanoi Police said that they have received many reports from people who were scammed when participating in financial investments online. Many people were scammed from several billion to tens of billions of VND. The person who was scammed the most was up to 57 billion VND. According to the police, scammers continuously advertise, attract, and entice people to participate in business activities, trading virtual currency, cryptocurrency online through trading floors, websites created by them.

A team of "employees" will continuously call and invite "investors" to join consulting groups, exchange via Zalo, Telegram... They even pretend to be financial experts, stock specialists or representatives of reputable brokerage companies to easily lure "prey" into Facebook groups, Telegram, Zalo... and participate in the trading floors they create.

Scammers compete to advertise their exchanges with promises of high interest rates, even providing fake evidence of profits from previous investors. After attracting a large number of investors and receiving money, the virtual exchange will close down or disappear, causing investors to lose all their invested money.

Many scam groups also organize conferences, seminars... incorporating advertisements about international securities, virtual currencies, and digital currencies. Profits that are far superior to the market and easy withdrawal of capital and interest are factors that scammers constantly use to attract people and investors.

Faced with the above situation, the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) recommends that people should be cautious when being introduced to international securities investment, virtual currency, digital currency, especially when they do not have knowledge in the field of finance and securities. People should carefully refer to feedback and reviews from previous users about their experiences with the trading floor, financial company, and securities that they are interested in investing in.

In addition, people and investors should seek advice from experts and lawyers before investing to avoid losing money from investment floors and fraudulent companies. "People should only trade on floors licensed by the authorities. In particular, people should not share personal information to anyone in any form, do not download applications of unknown origin or click on strange links," the agency warned.

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