SINGAPORE – In September 2021, Mr Brian Bruce received an invitation from a man to connect on online professional network LinkedIn, which eventually led to him losing US$200,000 (S$275,000) in a cryptocurrency scam.
The 46-year-old American business owner accepted the invitation, as the man who contacted him claimed he worked for a Fortune 500 company and that they had mutual friends.
Mr Bruce, who lives in Chicago, said: “He looked very legitimate, started talking business with me, knew the company I work at. He had a friend who went to the same university as me years ago, and so we really connected that way.”
After chatting with him for two weeks, the man introduced Mr Bruce to cryptocurrency trading platform Zebpayex.vip to trade Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
He even created fake financial charts to show Mr Bruce his investments had a 15 per cent return.
Convinced the platform was legitimate, Mr Bruce gradually increased his investment to $200,000 over two weeks.
When he tried to withdraw his earnings but was unable to do so, he was told he had to pay a 33 per cent tax on his investment sum.
Mr Bruce said: “I (realised) I pay taxes to my government and not to a crypto investment platform. That’s when I found out it was a scam.”
While trying to find online resources for scam victims, he discovered the Global Anti-Scam Organisation (Gaso), a volunteer-run group that supports victims of online scams.
He began…
