Help Me Help You Have you recently been getting random messages
on whatsapp or Line from an unknown number with an attractive lady who swears to know
you?
This is how this all starts.
It goes something like this in Asia.
Someone, usually a guy, will receive a text message from a random number, and it’ll
always be a girl.
This girl tends to claim she either knows the person who received the message from some
event or party they attended together.
And that seems to work just fine.
The allure of a beautiful woman claiming they haven’t heard from you in a while is alluring
to most people
As the conversation flows, the girl starts to show a little bit more of herself through
the “things she does”.
Usually, this starts with a long list of expensive hobbies like luxury travel, elegant dinners
at the most exclusive restaurants around the world and an overall lavish lifestyle.
The most important detail is that all of this seems to be absolutely uneventful for her–
this is her day-to-day life.
When pleasantries have been exchanged and a casual conversation is under way, that’s
when the first hit is taken: she starts talking about how she just happens to be a financial
analyst and how she’s got a successful career that’s allowed her to have the lifestyle
she does.
It’s all because of Forex and her great investments.
She might be able to help him, if he wants.
Creativity abounds when it comes to coming up with new scams.
And when you add in the lure of a beautiful woman, the possibilities seem endless.
While we’ve seen this format has been used one too many times in history, the new way
criminals are using messaging apps to scam men out of their money, specifically using
profiles of “affluent” Chinese women, is something worthy of a deep investigation.
Playing with the possibility of investing in the exciting world of forex trade and making
easy money, these seemingly perfect, rich and business-savvy women generate sufficient
interest in their victims while stripping them of big chunks of money in the process.
Inside Info Once they’re hooked, she’ll usually state
she’s got some sort of insider information from Wall Street she got from an uncle who
just happens to work there.
Her relative leaked some info for her and that’s how she was able to score big bucks.
Of course, the whole idea behind this is to “help” the man be a part of the move as
well.
It’s clear this is a very sophisticated game the person’s playing.
Impersonating an attractive girl, while also getting all of the information they need to
make their move is a delicate scheme that sometimes takes weeks to put in motion.
This whole set of scams, for example, makes detailed moves to make sure the possible victim
fits the profile: either they got some savings or seem to be very interested in the world
of finances.
All of this data is slowly captured through flirty conversations the “girl” has with
their prey.
By this time, the girl has been able to collect enough info on the man, so she knows how to
work him to her advantage: she either tells him he’s handsome and attractive or finds
a more personalized way to get more intimate with him.
The whole idea is to build trust and make him work for her.
It’s a matter of time before they start putting in money through the scam.
Demo Trades Once the interest has been established, the
scammer goes on to provide some free demo trades for the victim to get familiarized
with the trade.
These demo environments work as a way for people to invest money in real-time trading
events for practice.
The hot girl tells her victim they need to use a specific broker, so that it actually
works.
In this fake server, which is controlled by them, they change and act as if they’re
predicting the prices of the market.
Of course, these very specific brokers are part of the whole scam– the whole trade
is rigged to make it look as if the victim is actually making money on their lucky first
attempt.
She’ll use all of her fake insider information she got from her relatives and guide them
on when and how to close or open a trade position.
In a matter of minutes, he’ll have made a few thousand bucks.
Real Trades Things start getting real once the victim
creates a fake trading account on the server the girl told him to.
Once inside, the girl asks him to transfer a significant amount of money to start trading
seriously.
This is when she pretends to be getting info from her uncle or relative so that the victim
makes more money.
As he has been continuously making money, the victim is now on a roll– what most likely
happens is that they feel they’re basically unbeatable and will invest more and more money
into the account.
Of course, the hot girl has also been slowly pressuring him into putting more money in
with the intent of winning more.
But the truth is all of these investments were already lost.
And all of his earnings never really existed.
Whenever he tries to take out some money, the account goes blank or the withdrawal goes
to “pending” indefinitely.
In some cases, his account is closed by some kind of technical error in the platform–
he’ll never get the money.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat When he panics at the loss of his funds, one
of two things can happen: either the girl pressures him into investing more money to
make up for his loss or there is no further contact at all.
She’s gone.
Unfortunately, sometimes they cave in and put more money in to try to save their profits–
no earnings would return.
This is the MO of these kinds of scams.
Once the victim has deposited money into their fake version of a trading platform, their
money is registered as entered inside.
But, as this is a fake server they’ve put up, the money is actually sent through shadow
companies to other secret accounts where the criminals will get the money.
Most of them operate with a similar scheme: they say they have a direct contact that supplies
insider info, force the victim into using their broker, elusive about personal matters
but immediately responds to anything about trade, makes conversations revolve around
forex and plays with numbers to make the victim feel they’re making a lot of money so they’ll
invest more and more.
Hong Kong Love One of the most notorious cases was one investigated
by local authorities in Hong Kong where a series of cryptocurrency-related websites
were reported to have scammed multiple men around the world in a dating and investment
scheme that seemed to work in the exact same way.
Victims from all over the world were approached via a dating app where they connected with
a lovely girl said to be located in Hong Kong.
Through a series of flirty conversations they were–as with the other scams–told by the
girl that she was a financial analyst that could help them get started in the world of
cryptocurrencies.
The women, who were a cover-up identity for felons, were aggressively asking the men to
buy real cryptocurrencies and trade them specifically for OEN coins on the websites Bitfex.vip and
Bitfex.pro.
According to The Standard Hong Kong, the websites were part of the same parent company located
in Jilin, China, and disappeared soon after a police investigation was underway.
As with the other related scams, the women claimed they had an uncle who was directly
related to Wall Street and was supplying them with market information; they also disappeared
as soon as the men started requesting their earnings from the investments made on the
websites.
Several victims lost sums between $2500 to $25,000 investing in the fake servers.
Authorities in Hong Kong closed the case claiming there was no way to prove this had been operated
from a local server since its IP address kept changing continuously.
OEN to OWND The women would incite digital love affairs
with their victims and use that as a hook to make them invest thousands of dollars on
OEN.
Some of the victims were told to buy Bitcoins from crypto-exchange Kraken to be substituted
by OEN coins in Bitfex.pro to be used as currency for their investments.
OEN came under investigation because of its fraudulent background.
Bitfex.pro, the website used for the suspected Hong kong-based scam, is directly linked to
oen.asia, a website known to strictly promote OEN coins.
Both of them were registered under Xu Weindong, who has been related to five other websites
selling similar crypto schemes.
Several online blogs commented on the fact that OEN is actually a coin that never really
existed.
The primary site where it's sold, Bitfex.pro, has severe security breaches and could easily
access user’s information– like the victims who invested in it.
While authorities in Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong had been alerted, OEN was still
going around online being promoted by very elaborate online dating schemes.
As expected, once the victims wanted to withdraw their funds, they were told to invest larger
sums in cryptocurrencies– a sure way to make more money.
Loveless Some of the most notorious cases included
a German engineer named Christian.
He said he was approached by a Chinese woman named Li via Ablo, a messaging app.
For about a month, he kept in direct contact with Li, who kept bragging about her success
investing in OEN.
Then, in a matter of two months, he was trading Bitcoins for OEN on one of the websites Li
suggested– his profits seemed to be going through the roof.
After trying to get his money, he realized he had been scammed out of $25,000.
He was in deep distress.
Another standout case is Raj, a 30 something Indian man living in Switzerland who matched
on Tinder with a Chinese woman named Bella.
He went through the same ordeal of buying cryptocurrencies and exchanged them for OEN
coins.
At the same time, he went on to check Bella’s identity, only to notice her pictures actually
belonged to another woman in Taiwan.
When he told local police and they tried to contact her, she had blocked him on WhatsApp.
He lost more than $25,000.
Vincent, from the UK, was told by a beautiful lady with whom he matched on Tinder that he
would make profits of 20 to 30 times what he invested if he went on to put money in
OEN– all of this because she had an uncle working inside Wall Street.
Vincent was robbed of almost $3000.
None of these men’s identities–including their last names– have been revealed.
The standard approach remains the same in all of these cases: a popular dating or messaging
app used to connect with men quickly turns into an insightful conversation that slowly
focuses on financial investments that’ll make them lots of money.
The victims are lured by the interesting profile these “women” have and invest accordingly.
Whenever they try to get their “profits”, they’re pushed to invest even more, only
to realize they’ve lost their money and it’s too late now.
Overall, this case had an impressive impact: the media mentions more than 200 victims who
were scammed by the same scheme across 20 different countries.
In total, they collectively lost a whopping $70 million– a number that averages almost
$350,000 per victim.
All of these cases related to one scam involving OEN cryptocurrency trading on illegal platforms.
Fun fact: Both Bitfex.vip and Bitfex.pro were taken off online.
OEN has been dismantled ever since.
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Let us know in the comment section what’s the earliest scam that you encountered in
your life!