Woman Gets 71 Months in Prison Over Bitcoin Investment Fraud Targeting Elderly

[_act_]

I bolded the reason I brought this topic up on this forum:

Sze Man Yu Inos, also known as "Yuki," befriended older women in the U.S. territories of Saipan and Guam between November 2020 and January 2022 as part of her fraudulent scheme, prosecutors said. She falsely claimed to come from a wealthy Chinese family, own multiple businesses, and have success investing in Bitcoin to gain victims' trust before defrauding them.

The 30-year-old's scheme included forging a federal judge's signature to facilitate her fraud, prosecutors said. The court ordered Inos to pay $769,355.67 in restitution to victims and imposed a criminal forfeiture judgment of $684,848.34.

Even after leaving the Marianas, Inos continued defrauding victims in Washington and California while her federal case was pending. The cross-state nature of her crimes escalated the federal prosecution and ultimately contributed to the severity of her sentence.

You can use the link in the quote to read about the scammer.

I just think some people can first not convinced, thinking she is a fraudster, but after seeing federal judge's signature, they may be convinced. I did not know how she used it but this is real. We really need to be careful.

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

[dzungmobile]

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

It's still possible as an actual story. Some people are too lazy and they don't want to learn basics about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, wallets and they can trust you, then ask you to buy bitcoin or altcoins for them. Then, guess what's next, they might feel fearful of taking care of those coins by themselves, and they will ask you to store those coins for them.

That's my advice like it's not good to try introduce or educate bitcoin to your family members or friends, as sometimes such stories like above might happen, and they will pass the stressful works to you. If it ends with loss by a hack or the market, they will blame everything on you.

[EarnOnVictor]

I just think some people can first not convinced, thinking she is a fraudster, but after seeing federal judge's signature, they may be convinced. I did not know how she used it but this is real. We really need to be careful.

This is serious, well, we shouldn't be so surprised, scammers are getting advanced, and there are now many high-level fraud cases that use the clearance of the government employees/officials. This can only be termed as significant growth in cybercrimes, which is more reason why we should be careful. If it's too good to be true, run! And if you can't absolutely verify, run even more.

[JeromeTash]

Sometimes I don't understand how the legal systems work. I feel like the 71 months, which is roughly 6 years, is not enough. Such people should be locked away for a minimum of 20 years. If you are going to defraud people and take away the money they tried to make in their youthful years saving it for later years, then you deserve to waste away your youthful years as well, rotting away in a jail until you get back to your senses.
The fact that she continued defrauding people even when her federal case was pending is mind-blowing.

[MinMan]

As long as there are people who are greedy, scammers will never go out of business, because scammers upgrade their methods with time, and they know that there will surely be some people who will believe in whatever they pitch to them, even if the ratio is very low, like maybe 1 out of 30 people fall for their tricks, that's still good enough for them because they manage to make good money even from a single person if they are pursuasive enough to make them give away everything they have, and we have seen a lot of cases where people got scammed out of all their life-savings.

I have seen people running fake live streams on YouTube and other platforms pretending to be famous people who are doing a live giveaway where people need to send a specific amount to an address mentioned on the screen to actually get double of that amount or something, and believe me, people fall for such things as well, because they are too naive to understand what is going on, they only see that it's Elon Musk who is saying he is doing a giveaway, they straightaway send money and believe they are going to get double.

[passwordnow]

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

That is us, we know how to invest and there's no need for anyone's guidance. But you'd be surprise on how many people who would like to have this kind of person that they think will help them in good faith because they are lazy to do their own research and they don't want to do it by themselves. What they only want is just give the money and let it be invested on it and whoever they have that trust, they're the one to do all of the job including managing it and dealing with the volatility which should be understood by them before investing. Therefore, many fall for these kinds of frauds.

[Fiatless]

I just think some people can first not convinced, thinking she is a fraudster, but after seeing federal judge's signature, they may be convinced. I did not know how she used it but this is real. We really need to be careful.

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

You are right, we need to be careful. This is because these scammers can come up with severe schemes to defraud people. Faking a judge's signature is another height of criminality.

Some people are ignorant and not willing to learn. The process of buying Bitcoin is simple, so there is no need to use middlemen to buy Bitcoin. Spending a few hours learning about Bitcoin transactions would have saved these people from scammers.

[Marykeller]

I bolded the reason I brought this topic up on this forum:

Sze Man Yu Inos, also known as "Yuki," befriended older women in the U.S. territories of Saipan and Guam between November 2020 and January 2022 as part of her fraudulent scheme, prosecutors said. She falsely claimed to come from a wealthy Chinese family, own multiple businesses, and have success investing in Bitcoin to gain victims' trust before defrauding them.

The 30-year-old's scheme included forging a federal judge's signature to facilitate her fraud, prosecutors said. The court ordered Inos to pay $769,355.67 in restitution to victims and imposed a criminal forfeiture judgment of $684,848.34.

Even after leaving the Marianas, Inos continued defrauding victims in Washington and California while her federal case was pending. The cross-state nature of her crimes escalated the federal prosecution and ultimately contributed to the severity of her sentence.

You can use the link in the quote to read about the scammer.

I just think some people can first not convinced, thinking she is a fraudster, but after seeing federal judge's signature, they may be convinced. I did not know how she used it but this is real. We really need to be careful.

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

In this world we live in, everyone should be cautious about who they allow to be close to them, as not everyone who claims to love, professing love to them on social media and off social media is genuine and has no hidden agenda to steal from them.

A scammer can do whatever it takes to make sure they steal from you, even if it means getting a forged document. They will do that, to succeed in their plan.

One thing about most of these scammers is that, first of all, they gain your trust before they can strike at you, to demand something they know that you won't suspect anything from. You will see that as a help rendered to you, to become rich.

That's the reason why, everyone should learn to do this on their own. Ask questions when introduced to something new. Don't feel like because you trust and love this person, they can't scam you. They can scam you, if the opportunity arises

[Vod]

Inos continued defrauding victims in Washington and California while her federal case was pending. The cross-state nature of her crimes escalated the federal prosecution and ultimately contributed to the severity of her sentence.

Judges have wide latitude over what they can impose when a defendant continues the same type of crime after being charged criminally or sued civilly. 

[o48o]

It's still possible as an actual story. Some people are too lazy and they don't want to learn basics about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, wallets and they can trust you, then ask you to buy bitcoin or altcoins for them. Then, guess what's next, they might feel fearful of taking care of those coins by themselves, and they will ask you to store those coins for them.

That's my advice like it's not good to try introduce or educate bitcoin to your family members or friends, as sometimes such stories like above might happen, and they will pass the stressful works to you. If it ends with loss by a hack or the market, they will blame everything on you.

Sure, i will help anyone if they want help. But these scammers aren't targeting educated people, or people who are accepting in the first place.

While being skeptic is healthy, back in time friend of my friend told me that he bought bitcoin long time ago, and wondered if it's still possible to acquire it. He explained the situation and i told that his bitcoin was still safe, and if he wanted i could help him to cash it, or just to store it better. He said thanks but no thanks (because he didn't trust me). Few years ago i heard that he tried to recover it, but logged into fake site that immediately cleared his wallet.

[ColdLava40]

I do not believe in anybody that will tell me he will help me in bitcoin investment because I can do the investment myself on a noncustodial wallet. Just to hold and not sell for many years.

Wow, she took it to another level.

Going to the extent of forging a federal judge sig is the peak of it. I'm not sure there will be anyone who will not fall for it after seeing something that looked very authentic.

But if we do look at it, she targeted the weak ones. Older people might not have the time to want to check out for authenticity and since most of them are living of their retirement funds, they will be lured to want to invest in something that can produce them extra money.

This is why crypto investment should not be singular to one generation. Both the young and old should be elite on these aspect even if they are not ready for investment.