[2018-03-02] South African Authorities Investigating Massive Bitcoin Scam

[Dany44]

A new scam has been uncovered that reportedly has stuck as many as 27,000 people across South Africa, Australia and America. BTC Global is now being investigated by South African serious commercial crimes unit, the Hawks.

The site for BTC Global now displays a page that states that trading has been suspended stating that their ‘master trader’ Steven Twain cannot be located.

It has emerged that as much as $50 mln was netted by the scam which saw thousands investing cryptocurrency into an online wallet address.[/pre][/left]

The full article: https://cryptocomes.com/south-african-authorities-investigating-massive-bitcoin-scam-btc-global

[Cryptoprimes]

I wish all these projects will stop soon. They feel big pressure from all sides now so I guess it will happen.

[gentlemand]

So it's nothing but a bog standard Ponzi. There've been plenty before and there'll be plenty to come. They never seem to call it a Ponzi though. 'bitcoin' and 'scam' are clearly what The People want to read.

[1Referee]

I wish all these projects will stop soon. They feel big pressure from all sides now so I guess it will happen.

Forget about it. As long as people put greed over moral standards and common sense, nothing will change, even not when there is a global attempt to halt these scams from popping up. I remember how people after the BitConnect scam made videos explaining how they lost their entire life savings. It's quite depressing, because you don't want people to go through this, but if I put aside the human feelings, and look at their actions, it's pure stupidity. If you make a stupid investment, ok, that's not the end of the world, but why on earth would anyone put his entire life savings into something? Even if it isn't a scam, one just doesn't do that. You work your entire life to build up a certain amount of capital, but just need a few weeks, or at most a few months to blow it all.

[Kprawn]

The timing is odd, because I received information from friends that live in that country....that their government is currently

working on regulations to monitor and control Crypto currencies. Scams like this will just give their regulators ammunition to

increase regulations on Bitcoin in their country. I hope their government is open-minded enough to see through these scams

and not too blame the technology. 

[Slow death]

With titles like these, they only contribute negatively to the bitcoin image.

" Speaking to a local publication in South Africa, TimesLIVE, many South Africans admitted that they invested between $1,400 and $120,000 with BTC Global as Forex and commodities trader “Steve Twain” was a "master trader.  "

Who is Steve Twain?

says he has a successful 6 year binary trading career, most people know that binary trading is full of scams, but that's not what shocks me, according to their website:

BTC GLOBAL SERVICES SUSPENDED
 

Payment info was sent to Steven Twain on Sunday 18 February 2018 as has been done by the admin team each week since last year.

Steven did not acknowledge receipt of the information.

Steven has not contacted anyone in leadership or admin team.

No payments have been made by Steven.

The admin team cannot locate him. If anyone has ANY information on how we can get in contact with him please get in touch and let us know.

We call for the threats, harassment and violence on leaders and admin to stop. It is unfathomable that people can behave like this. If you feel you've had a crime committed against you, you need to follow the legal procedures to deal with the matter.

We are as shocked and angry as everyone. But we all knew the risks involved in placing funds with Steven.
We all became complacent with Steven. And all of us funded him independently.

Until Steven Twain resurfaces or is found there is nothing the admin team can do.

The only contact details the admin team had for Steven were as follows:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/steven.twain.319 (profile now removed)
Email: steventwain22@gmail.com

they do not even have the phone number and the home address of the Steven Twain

[Signaturan]

The timing is odd, because I received information from friends that live in that country....that their government is currently

working on regulations to monitor and control Crypto currencies. Scams like this will just give their regulators ammunition to

increase regulations on Bitcoin in their country. I hope their government is open-minded enough to see through these scams

and not too blame the technology. 

I think increased regulation is good for the crypto as a whole. We do not need too many scam coins.

[gentlemand]

they do not even have the phone number and the home address of the Steven Twain

Un-goddamn-believable. Yet strangely believable too.

Where does this seemingly infinite blind spot regarding due diligence come from? Otherwise rational people seem to chuck verifying things out the window when it comes to anything online that hisses at them about fictional gains.

[cryptbit.man]

Man first this, then the CEO of Binance being accuse of corruption. Bitcoin is getting a bit of a bad rep lately, which sucks!

[1Referee]

Man first this, then the CEO of Binance being accuse of corruption. Bitcoin is getting a bit of a bad rep lately, which sucks!

Individuals messing up has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself. If people find it necessary to blame Bitcoin for something people do wrong, they are nothing more than utter hypocrites and retarded. If Goldman Sachs CEO messes up, should we blame fiat or the CEO for his own deeds? Never blame the tool for the actions of malicious and stupid entities.

It's mind boggling how stupid the general person is falling for these scams. I have seen how a lot people fell for a fake Twitter account of Binance CEO, where the impersonators used a blue nonsense emoticon to mimick the blue verification mark behind people's name, lol. If you fall that easily for a Twitter scam, you are nothing more than a fool. I have seen a lot empty headed chickens throughout the years, but the people having joined the crypto market in the last 12 months are far worse, and that in each and every aspect.