Sun City man says he lost $150K+ to long-term cryptocurrency scam
A Sun City Hilton Head resident told police he lost $155,000 to a cryptocurrency scam over the course of a year.
The man in the gated community’s Lake Somerset area came to deputies in early April, saying he had been sucked into the scam a year before by an unsolicited WhatsApp message saying he could make money investing in cryptocurrency and stocks.
After investing an initial $30,000 and losing it “overnight,” the man was given various excuses by the investment company, he was documented saying in a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The stockbrokers — who police said were most likely scammers — then pushed him to begin using a cryptocurrency trading platform. Because he was “new to cryptocurrency and his processes,” the man told police, he was sent messages with his exact login information and detailed steps about transferring his funds.
The man “believed he was getting on the inside track to making money,” a Beaufort County deputy wrote, but his transfers appeared to be going “directly to the scammers.” After investing another $60,000 into the platform and seeing some profit, he told police, he was ordered to pay another $30,000 in “taxes and fees.”
When the man later told the so-called stockbrokers he wanted to close his cryptocurrency account and withdraw all funds, the incident report says, they made him pay a $20,000 withdrawal fee to a supposed “digital currency exchange company.” That company’s subsequent demand for $5,000 in order to “close his account” made him realize he had been scammed, he told deputies.
Sheriff’s office spokesperson Lt. Daniel Allen said the Sun City man had spoken with police twice before about this likely scam — but like many other victims, he wanted to believe he would see a return on his investment.
“Investigators had attempted to talk with the guy a couple of times ... but the guy did not believe he was being scammed,” Allen said.
Cryptocurrency scams in Beaufort County
The case includes several red flags associated with increasingly prevalent cryptocurrency investment scams, which often bait victims with unsolicited financial advice on messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
Scammers might build trust with victims over long periods as they convince them to invest — like when a Sun City woman got a text from a suspected scammer and had “frequent conversations” with them before she was lured into an online scheme.
The FBI says fraudsters mislead victims into depositing more money by making their initial investments appear “extremely lucrative.” The criminals often “freeze” the victim’s account and ask for more funds to resolve the issue — but in all likelihood, that stolen digital currency will be quickly funneled into their own crypto wallets, authorities say.
Cryptocurrency scams drain millions of dollars from Beaufort County residents every year. Much of those losses come from victims feeding their money into “predatory” crypto ATMs that are commonly seen in local convenience stores, a former sheriff’s office lieutenant previously told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Online con artists have set their sights on Bitcoin and other virtual currencies because transfers are often irreversible and not protected under a centralized authority like at traditional banks.
Officials in South Carolina and nationwide are calling for government oversight of cryptocurrency, a powerful new tool for scammers targeting aging communities like Hilton Head and Sun City.
