A resident of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, whose name was undisclosed, has reportedly parted with $9.2 million after falling prey in a typical cryptocurrency romance fraud.
The local police said it has never investigated a crypto-related scam where individuals have lost such a substantial sum.
The Multi-Million Scheme
As reported by Star Tribune, the man started chatting with a mysterious woman on LinkedIn who urged him to invest in a dubious cryptocurrency project called “Coinrule-web3.” She lured him that the investment would make him rich in a short period of time, whereas the generated funds could help the man abandon his wife and run off with his new “lover.”
Blinded by her promises, he ended up distributing $9.2 million between December 2022 and June 2023 via 21 transactions. The man was encouraged by the high return on his investment which he observed on the suspicious platform. However, he was requested to pay millions of dollars upon withdrawing his funds.
Despite being kept in the dark, it was the man’s wife who assumed that there might be something wrong with the scheme. She informed the local police in mid-June that her husband had been liquidating their investment accounts for the past half a year. He also called “in panic,” urging her to withdraw all their savings to pay the fee so he could cash in his crypto funds.
Law enforcement agents launched an immediate investigation and found out that “Coinrule-web3” has been tied to multiple romance scams. They also determined that one of the banks that obtained some of the deposits was connected to previous money laundering cases.
Eden Prairie police disclosed they had investigated four such frauds so far this year. However, none of them could be compared to the most recent case.
“No one in the office has heard of a crypto fraud case as big. In fact, their eyes popped when I told them the amount,” John Stiles – spokesman for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, said.
The inspectors also discovered that the mysterious woman embezzled the amount and transferred it into encrypted crypto wallets that no one besides the scammer could access.
The police officers have not revealed whether they have a suspect behind the crime or whether they will proceed with any arrests.
Crypto Romance Scams Have Become Highly Popular
The aforementioned fraud is hardly the only example of a cryptocurrency romance fraud where people fall in love with an unknown individual who later drains their savings via a scheme involving digital assets.
As CryptoPotato reported, $185 million in losses for American victims parted with $185 million between January 2021 and March 2022 due to scams of this type.
It is worth mentioning that such fraudsters are active not only in the USA. A British man lost $200,000 worth of bitcoin at the beginning of 2022, whereas an elderly resident of Nottinghamshire transferred an even higher amount to a wrongdoer who introduced himself as a US Army surgeon.
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