CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)– Business owner Zahra Hajiaghamohseni is always looking for ways to network online, so when she first received a direct message from another business account in October, she was hopeful her newly founded company was gaining traffic.
“It was just very generic conversation that was pretty benign. ‘What industry are you in? What do you do?’,” she described. “That is how I learned this particular account hypothetically specialized in virtual currency exchange,” she added.
The messenger, whose profile featured pictures of a handsome man living a lavish lifestyle, explained alleged cryptocurrency investment strategies and promised big returns. Hajiaghamohseni had been looking to invest money so she handed over $200,000.
“I initially was just looking for a virtual currency component and then three weeks in it turned into more of a personal component where emotions are involved,” she said.
The scammer, who was using a fake identity and photos stolen from a legitimate account, was grooming her to think she was in a whirlwind romance and slowly gained her trust. He explained that he would soon be retiring from an engineering career that required work on offshore oil rigs but until then he needed to borrow $150,000 for expensive machinery parts.
He directed Hajiaghamohseni to work with a legal secretary who used her law firm’s email server to facilitate the money transfers.
“There were layers of real people…
