Two men were arrested in Pyrmont, Sydney. Photo: AFP
Australians are reminded not to invest money with anybody they have only ever met online, days after the AFP seized $22.5 million and charged four Chinese nationals for enabling a global investment scam that has fleeced victims of over $144 million ($US100m).
The complex scam saw a network of criminals employing a mixture of social engineering techniques – including dating sites, employment sites, and messaging platforms – to gain the trust of victims, then steer them towards investment opportunities with claimed strong returns.
Victims would be manipulated into subscribing to a legitimate financial investment service, which would flood them with investment data to steer them towards profitable investments.
Fabricated data substantiating claimed returns were fed into legitimate electronic trading platforms – used every day to facilitate foreign exchange and cryptocurrency transactions – to support claims of a positive return on the investments.
A joint NSW Police and AFP Cybercrime Operations Eastern Command task force, called Project Wickham, was initiated after a tip-off from the US Secret Service and led to the arrest of two alleged perpetrators in Sydney on 20 October.
Two other suspects were arrested on 24 November while trying to flee Australia for Hong Kong.
The first two men have been charged with recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime, while the second pair were charged with…
