Marylanders are losing millions to Crypto investment scams

Publication Date: 2024-10-01

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Cryptocurrency has grown in popularity over the last few years. From the big boys like Bitcoin or Ethereum, to the meme currencies like Dogecoin. The rapid rise has attracted scammers, scheming ways to take advantage of people looking to make money. "Marylander lost about 69 million dollars to this scam and that's only what's been reported," said FBI special agent Keith Custer. A scam typically starts with someone randomly reaching out to you from a random number or email. The scammer then tries to build trust with their potential target.

"Eventually the victim will learn about all the money the person has been making doing this cryptocurrency investment and then offer them the opportunity to join in," said Custer. Scammers encourage their victims to pull money from their savings or retirement. "Convert it to cryptocurrency legitimately through an exchange like Coinbase or Binance and transfer it to their trading account which is actually a wallet controlled by the scammer," said Custer. This is where scammers show great returns on investment. But they're phony, creating a delusion that you're making money hand over fist. "As the scam continues the victim will be presented with a one time opportunity to triple their money over a day or two and they'll be encouraged to sell off retirement accounts, take loans," said Custer. Victims are usually completely oblivious to the scam until they try to get their money. "Victims are going to find out they can't withdraw the funds," said Custer. Victims who invested millions reported having to pay hundreds of thousands in fees to access their money. Some invested over a million dollars, not knowing there was little chance they'll get it back. "A peer to peer crypto transaction, there's nothing that we can do to reverse that," said Custer. The FBI says people should be weary and confirm the legitimacy of anyone inquiring about money, especially when it comes to cryptocurrency investments since it's one of the most common scams. "Cryptocurrency touches about half of the reported fraud that we've seen so far," said Custer. Although the FBI has a financial crimes unit to investigate these issues, by the time you find out it's a scam it could be too late.

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