He appeared to her on the app like a breath of fresh air.
A French wine merchant who moved to West Philly only a few years ago. He had a killer smile and an even better body – he obviously spent a lot of time in the gym. His name is Ansel Mari. And he deleted the Hinge profile shortly after they moved the conversation to his WhatsApp. He said he wanted to focus on her.
very refreshingthought Shreya Dutta.
It was January, and Datta, a 37-year-old director of a multinational technology company outside Philadelphia, had been using the app for several months. Every man she met was talking to several women. She liked how Mari trusted her so much.
Later, she saw it as a red flag — like so many others. How could she have been so deceived? “My psychology seems to have been hacked,” she said.
By then she had lost $450,000.
Datta was a victim of a scam known as “slaughter of pigs.” This scam is believed to have originated in China. Scammers impersonating others develop relationships with their victims, eventually convincing them to invest more and more money in fake cryptocurrency investment platforms.
A relationship could start on a dating app like Datta did, or on LinkedIn. Seemingly as a WhatsApp message to someone elseAs the relationship progresses, the scammers reveal that they are making huge profits trading cryptocurrencies, eventually encouraging victims to try cryptocurrencies and explaining each step of the fake investment app. .
The scams are long and sophisticated, with scammers engaging in months-long courtships to build trust, sometimes allowing Mark to extract profits from the app first. Once you have invested, you will find that you can no longer withdraw your money. The app claims income tax. This is the last bid the victim will pay before realizing they have been scammed.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3), cryptocurrency investment fraud is the fastest growing type of investment fraud, with victims reporting losses of $2.57 billion last year, and 2021. has nearly tripled since I lost about $55 million in total due to cryptocurrency scams. Reported by IC3.
“I guess I’m a ‘pig,'” Datta said with a laugh in an interview last month, weeks after realizing he had been scammed. An Old Town resident who moved to the US from India in 2008 for his master’s degree, his Datta was struggling to recover. She had arranged to move to a cheaper apartment and sell her car while battling her intense shame and self-loathing. But she still managed to downplay the situation, joking that she tasted seafood pastries from Parisian baguettes and stressed everything out at a Chinatown cafe.
She was trying to focus on a lucky way.She still had a well-paying job.Her family was able to get her out of debt.She was finally able to get out of this mess. I made it.
“Sometimes I think, ‘It’s just money,'” she said. “There are days when I think, ‘I have no choice but to cry.'”
As soon as she and Mari moved to WhatsApp, they started chatting from morning to night.
During that first week, he shared his dream of achieving “wealth freedom.”
“So that I don’t have to work for the rest of my life and have more time to travel the world with my lover and leave our love’s footprints in every corner of the world,” he wrote. I’m here.
He added that one of his hobbies is monitoring the crypto market.
Datta, who describes herself as a romantic and out of luck, had just gotten over her divorce and was finally open to dating again. I became more and more enamored with the prospect of traveling around the world with a Frenchman and wine-trading gym enthusiast.
“Finally,” she thought, “Something good is going on.”
They made plans to meet when she returned from a family visit to Pune, India. Meanwhile, he persuaded her to try her hand at crypto trading. He taught her her way of doing things. He texted, “You can treat me to dinner with the money you earn.”
From the link he sent her, she downloaded what appeared to be a SoFi cryptocurrency trading app. The app had her two-factor authentication and customer service, and she was in regular contact. She converted her $1,000 of her savings into cryptocurrency on her Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and transferred it from there to her trading app.
Datta and Mali exchanged screenshots and Mali showed them exactly what to do. In minutes she saw her $1,000 turn into her $1,250. And she was able to withdraw her balance from the app without issue.
In late January, Mari said she was away on business in San Francisco and couldn’t meet. By then, she had converted her investment of $6,000 into her $9,000. In between messages about cryptocurrencies, they talk about the vegan meals she makes, send selfies and flirty emojis, and chill out to photos she sends from the cat shelter she volunteers at. I answered.
He would often check on her (“Darling, have you eaten yet?”) and thank her for helping with the investment, to which he replied, “I said I would protect you.” It was exactly the kind of care Datta dreamed of.
Mari’s time in California dragged on. He said his uncle has terminal cancer. he had to take care of him. They video chatted twice very briefly Mali said he was shy and the camera wasn’t left in his face Mali showed her his dog. I thought I heard a French accent.
He told her that to make real money, he needed to invest more. He lent her $150,000, sold her shares, and encouraged her to invest more of her money to take out her personal loans. she asked He was furious when she struggled to utilize her 401K.
“Can’t you control your money?” he said.
“Speak kindly,” she replied.
On Valentine’s Day, he sent her a bouquet from Bee Flowers, a shop in Port Richmond. The next day she successfully cleared her 401K.
“I was in a trance,” she said. “I felt like I met my man.”
By the end of March, the $450,000 Datta had invested in the fake app had more than doubled. But when she went to withdraw it, she got the message that she had to pay her 10% personal income tax first.
Feeling depressed, she called her brother, a lawyer in London.
The photo Mari sent her, which her brother discovered with the help of a private investigator, was not of a French wine trader, but of a German fitness influencer who knows how to take mirror selfies. Datta began to see everything in a painful new light: Mari’s endless trips to San Francisco, all his excuses for not being able to meet, and the strange references to China. “
A report last year said the pig slaughter scam was carried out by a crime syndicate out of central Cambodia, with thousands of staff lured to other countries by promises of legitimate work. vice news and the south china morning postEnslaved and abused, these workers are given sophisticated scripts tailored to different types of victims and forced to use them on targets like Datta. increase. Volunteers from the China-Cambodia charity team that rescues forced laborers have rescued 50 people from Cambodian centers over several months in 2021 and 2022, Vice estimates, most of them from mainland China. bottom.
In the first week of April, Dutta filed a report with police and the FBI. She hasn’t received any substantive updates from either. A few days later, Coinbase suspended her account and wrote in her email: Coinbase did not respond to the reporter’s request for comment.
The Justice Department last month announced Recovered $112 million worth of cryptocurrency related to a pig slaughter scam.
With her fantasy shattered, Datta began psychotherapy and joined a support group for victims of cyber romance scams.
She reflects on why she was the perfect victim.
As a single woman approaching middle age in a culture that privileged couples, “the lack of men in my life left a hole in my soul.” As an immigrant without a relationship, she was used to doing everything on her own.
She was earning a six-figure salary but didn’t pay much attention to her money. By investing in her Mali, she felt she was “acting in her power.” And her standards for men are low, causing her to fall for all the attention of the seemingly caring Mari.
In the aftermath of the fraud, she had to deal with the judgment of others who mocked her. i won’t fall for itStill, she wants to fight the shame she felt and hopes that sharing her story will help prevent others from falling for the same scam.
“My goal is not to hide,” she said.
