Romance Scam, Pig Butchering Scam, Fraudulent Trading Platform, Identity Theft Risk
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.
Built emotional rapport, encouraged increasing deposits with demo profits, allowed small withdrawals to gain trust, then froze accounts and imposed large tax demands to access funds.
$491,000+
Funds unrecovered, accounts wiped, and website now offline. Washington State DFI issued an alert identifying Sundell FX as part of a larger crypto scam ring.