Crypto Investment Scam
I am taking this opportunity to share my story and educate people of a crypto investment scam that I am a victim of. I have lost all my 25 years of savings including my retirement savings, my kid’s education fund and my personal savings. This scam is very sophisticated, and a network of scammers situated across the world have created a playbook to scam/cheat innocent people around the world. Please read through this and understand how these scammers/cheaters get your attention, builds trust, take your money, then vanish in thin air. If you or your loved ones are a victim of such scams, please do share your experience and let us create awareness among people so that others don’t fall victim and lose their lifetime savings. There are other scams such as romance scams, pit butchering etc. and I deeply sympathize for those victims who has lost everything emotionally & financially.
Help needed — Soliciting Tax and legal advice:
I am trying to get some help on how to deal with taxes as I have liquidated my 401K account, IRA account and other investment accounts. Is there a special consideration from IRS for victims like me? Any help and advice are highly appreciated. I am sure there are other victims in US that are in similar situation as me and anyone who can help us is greatly appreciated.
I used Coinbase.com & crypto.com to transfer the money to crypto wallet and Coinbase has charged me well over $25,000 as fees but they never warned me that I was transferring my money to scammers. Is there a legal action that I can take against Coinbase for colluding with the scammers or for providing a platform for scammers to scam people in US.
Any legal Advice on how to deal with taxes
Here is my Story:
First it started with a somebody adding me to a “$Forex VIP Club A65” WhatsApp group on Feb 24, 2023, there are 74 members in this WhatsApp as of today. We were introduced saying that this is an exclusive forex trading group under the leadership of the Mr. Jim Rogers (very well-known and successful forex trader — https://www.jimrogers.com/) and this group is created to learn trading concepts while earning. It looks like one of the scammers from this WhatsApp group is impersonating actual Mr. Jim Rogers. In my opinion, unfortunately, the members of this forex VIP club (Scammers & Cheaters) are impersonating the actual Jim Rogers and scamming people to believe that actual successful investor Mr. Rogers is the one who is running this club and will help people make profits. With this assurance I was tricked into putting my money into this forex (BTC/USDT and ETH/USDT crypto currency) trading scam.
Here are some main points on how this trading group/rules established. I am pasting down those WhatsApp chat messages below:
1. I received the following message by a person called Elsa Anna who claims that she is Mr. Roger’s assistant. Welcome to join, you can click the link below to register your foreign exchange account, after you successfully registered real name authentication, I will help you apply for 500 dollars of operating fund! https://www.oanda4.com/#/register?code=092386 and https://www.oanda4.com/index.html
Here is the address for Original OANDA (www.oanda.com) Corporation. Scammers have created a replica of actual Oanda.com and has named it as: https://www.oanda4.com/index.html
These are more messages from Elsa Anna (Rogers’ assistant) and other members:
2. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): Good morning my friend. Welcome to the Jim Rogers Stock Forex Research Club, which will support you in the following areas:
a. Stock Market and Forex Trading Signals
b. Stock market and foreign exchange market analysis
c. Stock market and foreign exchange knowledge courses
d. Inventory analysis
e. Personal Investment Analyst
If you have any investment questions about stocks or foreign exchange, please contact me and I will do my best to answer your questions.
The Club Group Chat was created to help you better organize your future financial thoughts. Let investment friends avoid detours. Help a friend to increase some income.
3. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): Dear new friend, let me explain to you again. Forex Club’s mission is to provide you with the investment analysis you need. People without investment can also learn and communicate with you, which can help you increase your income and add a new skill in the future.
4. +1 (618) 320–3090: Hi, what is the purpose of setting up this club?
5. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): The purpose of Jim’s Club is to help his friends understand investing and not be easily swallowed by predators in the financial market. A person’s power is limited, but the power of most retail investors is unlimited.
6. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): The club is made up of financial investors from all over the world. We are here to share trading skills and exchange information, you will fight side by side with elite investors from all over the world👊🏻
7. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): Mr. Jim Rogers will share free trading signals and information in the club from time to time every day, as well as share some investment-related knowledge and technical indicators. The accuracy rate of these signals is above 95%, which will be unimaginable for all friends.
8. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): Of course, as I said before, the meaning of this club. You can help your friends invest, make plans and increase their income. At the same time, help friends who do not invest learn how to invest and earn some income. Definitely. Friends learn together and improve each other.
9. +1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): The club was established by Mr. Jim with the support of FITBELA Exchange. The main function of the club is to train and exchange information signals for global stock and cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors. All information and signals within the club are completely free. If someone charges you for this, don’t believe it. Moreover, there are many liars now. Please do not click on any links other than the admin. If you have any questions, please consult me or Mr. Jim for verification, so as not to cause some losses to everyone. If you find any problems, please report them in time.
Mr. Jim will share some of his experience and insights on the market in the group from time to time. You can put clubs at the top so you don’t miss information. Everyone just joined the club. Mr. Jim and his team of analysts will give you some professional advice. If you have any questions about investment or stock trading, you can also add my whatsapp number to consult me. i am Anna.
Mr. Jim watches the market closely each week. When there is a suitable trading opportunity, he will send a trade signal at the club. If you have any questions about stocks and investment, you can private message Teacher Jim or ask me
10. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Rogers. Nice to see you all! A lot of people have been asking Anna about the layout of the trading signal and the progress of my new team formation, here I will explain to you in detail! Please wait patiently, I will have good news!
11. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): First of all, trade signals, the following trade signals will only become less and less, it will appear irregularly, you should not care about the number of it, but whether it can bring you profit! I observed that some people in the club made hundreds of thousands of dollars, while others made only a few thousand! Are the same trading signals, why there are different results, worth reflecting! Opportunities always come to those who are prepared!
12. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Secondly, about the formation of the new team, which is a topic that everyone has been concerned about. The reason why I take you to participate in the foreign exchange trading is to get to know you and select the candidate of the new team. I call it Flying Fund! After a month’s observation, I decided to select 50 forex traders from all clubs for assessment! I’m going to talk about the criteria.
13. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): The following is the content of the assessment: All the personnel participating in the assessment must prepare a foreign exchange position of no less than $500,000 for the assessment. The assessment will last for 10 days. When the 10 days are over, if your account profit is less than $500,000, it will be regarded as a failure of the assessment! The Flying Fund will reimburse you $100,000! You will no longer receive any trading guidance! When the assessment is completed and your profit exceeds $500,000, it will be regarded as a success, you will officially join the flying team, and you need to pay 20% commission to the flying team for the construction of the flying team! When your profits exceed $1 million, you pay 25% of your profits to the Flying Fund! All participants in the assessment will be guided by me personally, no less than 4 times a week trading signals!
14. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Participants in the assessment, the need for strict confidentiality and execution, shall not divulge any trading secrets to any irrelevant personnel, and each transaction capital shall not exceed 40% of the total capital, to ensure stable profits, if the loss caused by inaccurate trading signals by the flying fund within 24 hours to compensate! If the loss is caused by other reasons, the flying fund only bears 20%! The above is all the content of the assessment, meet the requirements of friends contact my assistant Anna sign up! If you are admitted by Anna, you can contact me directly for the assessment if you are ready for the space! Anna will inform you of your entry time if you are successful in your assessment and have paid 20% of your profits!
15.+1 (607) 208–6708 (Elsa Anna): Hello everyone, yesterday a lot of people participated in the examination of the flying team. All the people who participated in the examination will be guided by Mr. Jim personally. The profit of those who succeeded in the examination is expected to be 100% to 200%, which means that if you trade with $500,000, you will get a profit of $500,000 to $1,000,000. In addition, after paying 20% profit, you will officially join the flying team. If you fail in the assessment, you will have a compensation of 100,000 dollars. If you are ready for the space, please contact me.
16. Don’t worry, Anna told me that there are too many applicants, and the exam will be conducted in batches. The first exam will start on Thursday and the second next Tuesday. You can be fully prepared by next Tuesday!
17. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Good afternoon friends, I have been preparing for tomorrow’s exam, working every day with our team of analysts and economists. We collected a lot of data for analysis and collation, and after some research and judgment, we have a preliminary trading direction! Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to you all! I am very happy for your support and trust in me!
18. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Again, I emphasize that all test trading signals are analyzed and captured by my team and three teams of top analysts. Those who take part in the exam just need to have good execution and confidentiality! When the exam is over, you will have unexpected results. I saw someone in the group talking about buying a new car after the exam. My dear friends, this is not a problem at all. If you succeed in the exam and join my team, I guarantee that all members of Flying Fund will achieve wealth freedom like Quantum Fund within 2 years! For those who haven’t prepared the funds, please don’t worry. Due to the large number of applicants, the exam will be carried out in batches. There are still more opportunities later, you just need to contact Anna to register now!
19. +1 (217) 302–7650 (Jim Rogers): Ladies and gentlemen, the flight team exams will officially begin this afternoon. I will personally guide all participants to take the exam. Before the exam, I must emphasize the following execution and confidentiality. No one shall disclose commercial secrets. The trading signals for all exams are obtained through unremitting efforts by me and a team of three famous analysts. Candidates who cause losses due to disclosure of trade secrets will lose their qualifications for the exam! Today’s trading signal expects a profit of 45%! Each transaction is still strictly in accordance with no more than 40% of the position transaction, and the profit is calculated after the exam!
Based on the above messages, I paid the money in 16 installments and till date I have paid $1.75Million and traded on the Oanda4 platform based on Jim and Anna’s messages. The account grew to $5.3Million dollars and now he is demanding additional $435,000, since I refused to pay this additional money he has locked my account and not letting me withdraw any money out of it. Unfortunately the lock on the account is namesake as this is fraud website where there is no way to take the money out of that account.
Money was sent to 4 different Crypto Wallets and need help in tracing those wallets along with owners of those Crypto Wallets.
Roger’s is also not giving me any details/documentation for the money that I had paid till now. All the communication is via WhatsApp chat and no phone calls are allowed. They keep insisting on confidentiality and secrecy; hence I am sure this is a scam and he will not allow me to take my money out of this account.
One additional thing is that they are still active and the whatsapp group members are actively chatting everyday even today. There are 74 active members in this whatsapp group and here is the screenshots of those scammers.
Additional Information on these scammers based on internet searches of the above images. This person Elsa Anna has multiple identities online.
Here are some additional pictures of scammers who were part of this WhatsApp group. These pictures were shared by the individuals from that group
If you are victim of a scam here are some additional information and links that might help:
- Report to your local Police Department
- If it is a online scam, follow this FBI link to report — www.ic3.gov https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ ; https://www.secretservice.gov/
- Victim help — https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/victim-services
- https://www.finrafoundation.org/sites/finrafoundation/files/taking-action-investment-fraud-victim-recovery-checklist_1.pdf
- https://victimsofcrime.org/financial-crime-resource-center/
- More scams — https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/08/how-one-retired-woman-lost-her-life-savings-in-a-common-elder-fraud-scheme.html
- https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/victim-services/seeking-victim-information/seeking-potential-victims-of-cryptocurrency-investment-fraud
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/justice-dept-seizes-over-112m-funds-linked-cryptocurrency-investment-schemes-over-half
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/pig-butchering-industry-chinese-criminal-syndicates-american-victims/articleshow/106339293.cms
Disclaim: Phone numbers and images are from the WhatsApp contact and profile details. Based on my online image search, I have pasted those pictures in here and not sure if these images are genuine (or AI generated) nor point to the actual perpetrators.
