“Fake love”: this is how the most used romantic method for cryptocurrency scams works

The “wine merchant” wooed her online for months with his flirtatious smile and emoji-filled text messages. She then went for the kill, defrauding the Philadelphia-based technology professional out of $450,000 in a romantic scam carried out in operations with cryptocurrencies.

That scam, which hit Shreya Datta, 37, taking away her savings and retirement funds while she was saddled with debt, involved the use of digitally altered fake videos and a script so sophisticated she felt like her “brain had been hacked.” .

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The scam is commonly known as “pig butchering,” and refers to victims likening them to pigs fattened by the scammers with love and affection before committing the financial slaughter, tricking them into making a false investment in cryptocurrencies.

The rapid growth of this type of fraud, believed to be run by Southeast Asian criminal groups, has resulted in billions of dollars in losses in the United States, and victims say there are few ways to recover the money.

As has happened with many victims, Datta’s experience began on a dating application, in his case Hinge, where last January he met “Ancel,” who introduced himself as a French wine merchant living in Philadelphia.

Datta confessed that she felt “bombarded by his charisma” when the conversation quickly moved to WhatsApp. The gym-goer with the dreamy smile deleted his Hinge profile to give it “focused attention,” something that was a refreshing experience in the age of fleeting connections sustained online.

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From then on they began to exchange selfie photos, emoticons and made brief video calls in which the man appeared friendly but “shy” and posing with a dog.

But later, all of these were discovered to be deepfakes powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The two texted each other daily and “Ancel” would ask him about everyday things such as if he had eaten, taking advantage of Datta’s desire to have a loving partner after his divorce.

Plans to meet physically kept being postponed, but Datta was not immediately suspicious. On Valentine’s Day last year, she received a bouquet from “Ancel” sent from a Philadelphia flower shop, with the card addressed to her as “Honey Cream.”

When she sent him a selfie posing with the flowers, he showered her with red kiss mark emojis, according to WhatsApp exchanges seen by AFP.

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“Traumatizing”

That’s how “Ancel” sold him a dream.

“The dream was: ‘I’ll retire early, I’m fine. What’s your plan?’” Datta, an immigrant from India, told AFP.

“Then he told me, ‘I’ve made all this money investing. Do you really want to work until you’re 65?’”

So he sent him a link to download a cryptocurrency trading app, which came with a two-factor authentication to make it appear legitimate, and showed him what he called profitable trades through annotated screenshots, which were accessed by AFP.

Datta converted some of his savings into cryptocurrency on the US-based Coinbase exchange, and the fake app initially allowed him to withdraw his first earnings, boosting his confidence to invest further.

“When you make astronomical amounts of money trading, it disrupts your normal perception of risk,” Datta said in retrospect.

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Thus, “Ancel” encouraged her to invest more savings, take out loans and, despite being initially reluctant, to liquidate her retirement fund.

And that’s when his financial debacle came.

This is just one of the particular cases of the particular scam.

This type of scam seems to be on the rise. In 2023, more than 40,000 people reported this type of cryptocurrency fraud to the FBI, with total losses of more than $3.5 billion, according to figures sent to AFP by the federal police.

Undoubtedly underestimated amounts, since victims, overwhelmed by shame, rarely tell their stories.

And in that sense, Datta said she was also dealing with public judgments of people saying things like, “How can you be so stupid?”

Source: Elcomercio

Callum

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