Bitcoin Forum

Police Forces in Belgium, France and Israel Stop Scam Promising 35% Returns on Crypto Investments


https://news.bitcoin.com/belgium-france-israel-scam/

At least as crypto investors, we like to hear this kind of news are there are a lot of cyber criminals in the crypto sphere. It's a collective effort on the part of the authorities, so we comment those guys. I think we might see more of this in the future and I think it will bring more good to us. €6 Million is a big sum of money and we don't know if those investors are retirees or who really work hard for that money only to be stolen by this crooks. Hope that those criminals are going to stay in jail for at 5 - 10 years and suffer the consequences.

I wonder why the article doesn't even mention local news sources. I'm pretty sure stories like this would have made it in main stream publications. With just estimated amounts scammed, this is looking like a made up story by the author. Not even the name of the group was mentioned and other relevant information. We have to be more careful of what we read these days, even articles from known crypto news sites are just pure rubbish ;D

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edit:

Thanks for this. Even the source article is quite vague but it's better than the one in the OP. Where did you get the EURO 6.6 million by the way? In both articles, it's EURO 6 million.

On topic, I honestly didn't think people from the so-called first world would still fall for this trick. I thought those from third world countries are the usual victims. On the bright side though, the joint effort by the authorities to bring down an OCG is highly commendable.

The article is quite vague, but upon further investigation, the news have been sourced out of EuroJust. If you're interested, read it here: http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/PressReleases/Pages/2020/2020-01-30.aspx

The 6.6 million scam must be the total of all the stated amount by victims and their investigation when the members of the OCG has been arrested.

The news is quite new too, and to give you a gist, there's a total of 85 victims defrauded, and 10 personalities arrested.

This type of scheme should be stop immediately as it will surely lead to running the money of the investors in short scamming their hard earned money. Their actions is great, I salute them as they stop this kind of schemes immediately and they were able to minimize also the damages.

This type of scheme also hits in our country but as it was stop, it is almost too late as plenty of millions already that were taken by the founder of the schemes. Some schemes offers 50%-400% return of investment in just 1-3 months.

This is the most common scam that people easily bite, well, we can't blame those people who are the victim of this kind of scheme because all they just want is income. The problem is, they believe in things that are too good to be true, promises in ponzi schemes is obviously a lie, because who on the earth will give you too much profit by doubling the amount of money you invested to them in just days, or even week.

That alone is fishy as hell, but since it is all about earning big money, people take the risk, and they always suffer in the end of course, crying, asking for help to get their money back.

Damn. Already stopped at only approximately 85 victims? Wish the governments of most countries were this fast in shutting down these types of scams. Probably most scams in some countries are only stopped when multiple hundreds and thousands of people are already lured in. Though €6 Million is still definitely a huge sum of money.

People from third world countries are probably easier to scam, but unfortunately, greediness and gullibility is universal.

*meanwhile the Philippines..*

Nice catch! The investment groups are operating typical Ponzi schemes. The main bait here is that they pay promptly at the start. People would normally doubt such offers. As a result, they begin to invest small amounts to test the waters. The ROI came well and good. Their doubts are now somehow cleared and they invest once more, this time a little bigger. The payment may still arrive with the promised ROI. This may eventually clear the last speck of doubt to some and they invest amounts larger than ever. Until such point that the payable is higher than the investment inflow. At this point, the organizers will vanish into thin air.

But the article does not state the duration of the investments, whether the promised 5-35% of ROI is monthly or annual. If annual, it may be manageable. 


...people are still blindly jumping into all kinds of scams for the sake of possibly getting that quick and easy route to richness, however slim the chances may be, or however unbelievable the offer may be. Some people here are either too stupid or too desperate that they risk their hard-earned money into investments that offer at least 300% ROI in a month.

If you are promised a high profit in a short time - this is scam

Yes, of course, we cannot blame them the "victims" because all they want is more money from get rich quick ponzi schemes. That just sounds odd. How can you not put a blame on them when all the red flags are there. Can you not blame them for their ignorance and, more importantly, for their greediness?

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It doesn't matter if it's long term or short term. If someone guarantees that you will profit, then that's most likely a scam.

Thanks for the updated new link with some substance! Frauds and thieves will always be there but the main issue is the reputation of the cryptos. Cryptocurrencies are very frequently associated with frauds of similar sort, which actually brings down the reputation of cryptocurrency itself in the mind of common people. That is harmful for us! Educating the mass is the best thing to do to encounter such situation.

Also, 35% return?? Any person aware about the economic situation and the market, will definitely identify it as a scam as soon as they hear the amount of return. I wonder how these frauds have manage to get 85 investors at the first place!!

It's the greed of people that usually puts them in a rough spot, and usually it is those victims who are actually to blame since they are the ones believing fully on these types of scams. Though the figures are quite inconsistent, it's still good since the law enforcement agencies of different nations banded in order to take the scams down.

I'm keen to know as to how the victims came upon these crypto scams that are so obvious nowadays.


That's how you would know that the article is half-baked and they just want to be the first one to publish the said news around. Inconsistencies on figures, sources and whatnot can be found if a supposed news articles contains lots of errors.

It is good that the police continue to fight crypto scammers, because in fact they are not obliged to do this, because crypto traders often do not pay taxes.

This was because their victims are not just ordinary citizen but company owner and French local authorities.

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True that, I think those who have more wealth and claimed larger wealth are greedier than those who are on the poverty status.


It will take a lot of investigation of the investigation of the investigation of the scam case.  Will take eons to apprehend those criminals.

Yeah, spot on.

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To be fair, it took them time also to build a good case against the OCG.

I get both your points though. We've gotten used to news of our local authorities being slow with all talks/interviews but little action. I cannot say with 100% certainty but I think our forces have gotten better due to the foul-mouthed leader (I guess you know what I mean) ;D Case in point: KAPA.

More and more multiplier schemes were promoted in the name of bitcoin. This is not the first time, there were several such incidents that have taken place across the globe in different countries. Scams were common, but people take credit of using cryptocurrency as a source to scam the new comers in a much easier way. High return out of any investment needs to be analysed.

even they do it is hard for them to have evidence everything is doing online transaction they need proof before  they can charge scammers . Even the police n3ed to have a background in crypto before they can understand how this bitcoin things work.
 And accumulate more evidence those online scam is much harder for them to solve, than a normal case of scam.

If someone offers you a profit of 35%, know that with a probability of 99.9% it is a scam.

How come we never heard anything about this from news or front page papers? This is too big to be taken slightly, anyways we really can't blame scammers sometimes, investors can be so desperate for easy money which make them fall easily for traps like this

I think it's just because many people don't know what cryptos are and because some facts about returns on investing in cryptos are amazing and unlike anything people have seen before. So the mix of the lack of familiarity of what cryptos are and some facts about high profits of people who, say, bought at $1k and sold at $20k make the stories appealing and even somewhat realistic. This allows the scammers to succeed very often. Oh, and another thing is that if you scam people in a traditional way and get caught, you'll definitely be found guilty and probably end up in prison, whereas since cryptos are not regulated in many countries, sometimes even when scammers are known, nobody charges them for their crimes. It's good that some countries are working hard to change the situation.

As expected, investors disregards the warn given by the concern people in this forum. They thought that it's a great opportunity but in turns out as their worst nightmare because instead of earning huge profit, they end up losing their funds for nothing. Most of the investors never learn until they have experienced the same thing. Well as an investor, we should always be aware of everything not only to avoid being on the similar situation but also to protect ourselves and our funds. You can't easily say people's way of thinking, it is never easy to find out someone's genuine intention. Even those people you consider as friends can stab you at your back so it's better to be careful than end up regretting. Especially nowadays, scammers will continue on looking for various of approaches to deceive and exploit your funds and assets.

Since I use the internet I see many ads from hyip/ponzi sites that offer returns of more than 1000%, something impossible and ridiculous and I never heard that country X stop a lot of hyip/ponzi sites. So why the hell did this event become news? because it involves bitcoin?


I believe you must have seen promises of returns much higher than 35%. this kind of thing is full on the internet

the 0.1 % not mentioned probably would profit from drugs or from usery.
There is always a trick with such type of offers.... but the worst part is to read about "navigated" user that get scammed heavily despite all negative signs....

Well, I am hurt seeing this news. Imagine people having hopes in their mind and invest all of their money and assets for a 35% return of investment promised by these crooks and ended up being depressed and traumatized as they have realized that they will never get their money back? If I were given a chance, --I would teach people about finance and these schemes so that they can avoid it. It is really disappointing seeing people take advantage of other people's interests. Indeed, a good job for the authorities. I hope the investors could liquidate their investments at least.