A 38-year-old schoolteacher from Shanghai fell for a scammer and funded his purchase of the first cryptocurrency to the tune of 4 million yuan ($546,000). местные СМИ.
The offender connected with the woman online in 2022, posed as a successful entrepreneur, and convinced her of his romantic feelings. After a while, he proposed investing in a ‘profitable Bitcoin project’.
Over four months the teacher repeatedly transferred funds to the fraudster, even taking out a loan secured on her home to do so.
Police turned their attention to the suspicious activity on the victim’s accounts. They held 12 meetings with her, advising against impulsive investments. However, the woman denied that her ‘boyfriend’ could be a scammer, because he had promised to marry her.
Only after another victim of the same fraudster shared her story online did the teacher seek help from law enforcement.
According to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, romantic scams and the ‘pig-butchering’ scheme were the most popular tactics used by Bitcoin scammers from October 2018 to September 2022.