CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — “I thought it was honest, but it was not honest.”
That’s Harsh Nanda of Hickory, summarizing both the hopeful beginning and the damaging end to his foray into what he thought was a legitimate investment in cryptocurrency.
His cautionary tale is proof-positive that you’re not safe in your own home when the wolves are waiting at your digital door.
It began early last year with a message on Facebook telling him he could make big money investing in crypto, a possible solution to Nanda’s concerns about his parents’ health and his kids’ education — “to save money so you can send them to a better college,” he said.
Nanda was diving into a pool of unknown depth. The online messages enticed him to become a VIP, which promised even richer returns.
“So I joined the VIP group, another $44,000,” he said.
Money was going in, but none was coming out, not even an account balance he could point to, and he started getting cryptic messages about the crypto.
“[They said] we didn’t get that money, so we need you to resend it again,” he said.
Daniel Tobok, a crypto security expert with clients worldwide, said “there’s an enormous amount of scams going on around crypto. The perpetrators are very, very difficult to track.”
But Tobok says before there’s a breach of trust, there’s a bridge of trust. Effective crypto scams roll out over a period of time.
“This is not a smash and grab. This is really about establishing a relationship.”
“I even get approached on various platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp or text message,” Tobok said. “These are all being sent by bots. They’re all automated. There’s nobody actually behind the keyboard.”
Tobok said no one is safe.
“Very intelligent people that fall for this, they always [tell me], I can’t believe that I actually missed that,” Tobok said.
“The scammers are going to send a million messages to a million people, and even if there’s a 1% response, they’re able to monetize that,” Tobok said.
He has seen how these operations work.
“It will look like a real office with real people,” Tobok said. “And then you have, basically, a boiler room set up of computers, 50 to 100 and people sitting, typing away, and they were just the gateway to the actual operation, which was overseas.”
Like any effective con artists, they know how to identify the weakest targets.
“Someone who maybe has a bit of a financial struggle and maybe made money before in the stock market,” Tobok said, “and they’re actually open to monetizing cryptocurrency,” which is a good description of Nanda.
“I had Tesla stocks, Apple stocks, so I was thinking, this is good for the future for my kids,” Nanda said. “If I can save some money, I can send them to a better college later on.”
Nanda cashed in the stocks, but that wasn’t all.
“I have a second loan against the home,” he said. “I borrowed money from the parents. I borrowed money from my sister and my brother in law,” he said.
The total amount of his investment in this digital deception: $250,000.
“I always feel [for] the victims,” Tobok said. “Most of the victims really do this because they’re trying to solve a problem. That’s how they get sucked into this. They get manipulated into actually thinking that this will be the solution.”
The typical pitch will offer a great opportunity, but behind it are fake websites, fake forms, fake people and fake references, Tobok said.
In Nanda’s case, the bots were named Madeline and John, which turned out to be nothing more than his tour guides down the road to financial ruin.
“They have no remorse, no ethics, no sympathy,” Tobok said. “They just want the dollars. It’s very sad of what it’s doing to people’s lives.”
What’s worse — money that Nanda pulled from his legitimate investments to invest in crypto is now subject to income tax, which he can’t afford to pay.
“My heart is totally shattered,” he said.
Nanda has set up a GoFundMe to recover from the loss.
He has completed a formal complaint to both Chesapeake Police and the FBI. The bureau is investigating, but is not offering much hope. Tobok said crypto scammers often wash the money through as many as 12 “wallets,” making it virtually untraceable.
The FBI said cryptocurrency investment fraud is on the rise and offers these tips to protect consumers:
• If an unknown individual contacts you, do not release any financial or personal identifying information, or PII, and do not send any money.
• Do not invest per the advice of someone you meet solely online.
• Verify the validity of any investment opportunity from strangers or long-lost contacts on social media websites.
• Be on the lookout for domain names that impersonate legitimate financial institutions, especially cryptocurrency exchanges.
• Misspelled URLs, often with a slight deviation from the actual financial institutions’ website, may be fake.
• Do not download or use suspicious looking apps as a tool for investing unless you can verify the legitimacy of the app.
• If an investment opportunity sounds too good to be true, it likely is. Be cautious of get rich quick schemes.
• Confirm the validity of any investment opportunity or cryptocurrency investment website or app.
• If you already invested funds and believe you are a victim of a scheme, do not pay any additional fees or taxes to withdraw your money.
• Do not pay for services that claim to be able to recover lost funds.
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