Pakistani Investors Lose 1 Bln Rupees In New Bitcoin Scam
An online mobile trading app has stolen more than a billion rupees of hard-earned money from thousands of Pakistani cryptocurrency investors on the pretext of making easy profits by simply betting on the price of Bitcoin.
The application in question is known as the “HFC Pak Trade Application”. The criminals behind the app reached out to more than 40,000 unsuspecting people to download the app.
To play, users had to convert real money to cryptocurrency through a digital money changer and deposit it into their accounts within the app. They were then asked to log into the app four times a day for five-minute sessions in order to bet on the price of Bitcoin using the cryptocurrency on their accounts.
The investments made by the crypto enthusiasts ranged from $30,000 to $50,000. The criminals first gave users profits in order to gain their trust.
Motivated by the easy earnings, the users not only invested more but also recommended the trading platform to their friends, for whom they received bonuses.
In addition, criminals also hosted parties in luxury hotels for users of the HFC Pak Trading app. The evening videos were shared on various social media sites, which in turn brought more people to the platform.
However, earlier this month, on December 19th, the app crashed and has been offline ever since. The thieves went underground with the hard-earned Rs. One billion investors.
Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has filed a complaint against the owners of the HFC Pak Trading App and further investigations are ongoing.
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The head of the FIA Sindh Cyber Crime Wing (CCW), Imran Riaz, urged victims to come forward and share details of their investment with the CCW team, which is investigating the fraud.
In this regard, a cryptocurrency expert said he had scanned the accounts of users of the HFC Pak Trading app and it contained more than 1 billion rupees. However, the owners of the applications withdrew the money that only the authorities can find.
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