Kidnapped to be a Crypto Scammer
Crypto scams have become so lucrative that people are being kidnapped and forced to work as scammers.
A woman living in South Africa applied for a job as a customer service consultant. She was hired for the position and was told she would be working in Bangkok.
But instead of going to Bangkok, she was kidnapped and taken to Myanmar. Her kidnappers confiscated her passport and phone. They also destroyed her phone’s SIM card. When she arrived at the work compound, she saw many other people who looked miserable with their eyes glued to computer screens. She reported that she was later forced to scam victims online in various crypto scams.
“It seemed legit because every time I called them, they would pick up,” Sara said. But when Sara arrived in Thailand, she said she was driven in a car for hours and then eventually placed in a boat with gunmen.
These scams operate in many different ways, but the most common is through romance scams and high return investment scams. Victims are promised high returns on their investments, resulting in many people draining their retirement funds to enter these fake investment schemes. The FBI stated that in the first six months of 2024, they received more than 18,000 complaints about crypto investment scams. The losses totaled up to over $1.9 billion dollars.
Remember, people, you can get crypto on official exchanges yourself. You don’t need some random stranger to help you. If anyone ever contacts you about cryptocurrency (or any other forms of investing), block them and move on. They are trying to steal your money. If it is too good to be true then it probably is.
