A man from Guelph, Ontario reportedly lost large amounts of money to a cryptocurrency scam after meeting someone who pretended to be his long-lost friend.

Citing information from Guelph Police Service spokesperson Scott Tracey, CBC reports that the scheme started in an online chat forum where the victim connected with a person whom he came to believe as someone from his childhood in China.

The two began talking in a public forum in July. By September, the conversation had moved to private chat, and the purported childhood friend had managed to entice the victim into making crypto investments.

Tracey says that from mid-September to the end of November, the man sent approximately $188,000 to the fraudster.

“The victim started making transfers to this person, believing that he was sending the transfers for the purposes of buying cryptocurrency.”

The unnamed victim contacted the police this week, fearing that he was scammed after the friend asked for more funds, specifically a 30% verification fee. 

But the police say there is a small chance of recovering the lost funds given that the scammer is based overseas. In this case, the victim believes the perpetrator is somewhere in Asia.

Says Tracey,

“It’s very difficult for us to obviously investigate that and the victim was told that it’s almost impossible to recoup the lost funds.

That’s why we try to be as proactive as we can in terms of telling people that this is happening and encouraging them not to fall victim and to be aware of some of the warning signs.”

Tracey says people should always ask questions when conversing with someone online about cryptocurrency. 

“The scams that are going around are always being altered to try to defeat peoples’ skepticism. I think we have to adjust our response and encourage the public to adjust their response to meet the new techniques being employed by the scammers.”

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