Romance-Fueled Crypto Investment and Fake Trading Platform.
The victim joined a trading blog on social media, where he met two individuals—“Mr. Charlie” and “Tina”—claiming to represent Fitbela Epro Limited, a UK-based Forex trading firm. They persuaded him to open a Forex trading account on the Meta 5 Trading platform and promised high returns. The victim initially invested $10,000 and was told the account had grown significantly, prompting him to invest even more. Following their direction, he eventually sent a total of $92,000 via wire transfer. Later, they claimed his account was now worth $200,000. When the victim attempted to withdraw his funds, he was told he needed to pay $87,000 in taxes before any money could be released. At that point, he recognized it as a scam.
The scammer built a personal relationship over WhatsApp and used it to manipulate the victim into transferring funds to a fraudulent platform supposedly owned by her family. She maintained the illusion of profit with a high fake balance and deflected concerns when the platform became inaccessible, offering false reassurance to keep the victim passive.
$30,000+
The victim lost access to the platform and could not recover any funds. Lydia stopped giving clear responses, and the money was never returned.