Description

The scammer, Daniel, matched with me on Tinder. We moved the conversation to WhatsApp by his request. We talked for a few days and he mentioned trading cryptocurrency was one of his hobbies. He asked if I was interested in trading at all and I said not really and I wasn’t familiar with it. He said he can show me how to get started and then I would be trading on my own. On February 3rd he told me to download the Crypto.com Application and guided me in how to set up my account and add $200USD to it. He also sent me a link to a trading website at antexchange.top and instructed me on how to set up an account with them as well, stating that this website was where we would be doing the trading m. On February 4th he informed me that the market was good and that we should trade. He instructed me on how to purchase Tether coins (USDT) and then how to transfer them to the trading website. Once we completed that, he guided me through the trading process, telling me to buy in at 5 trading hands. About 15 minutes later he instructed me to close the transaction resulting in me making an additional $40USDT. He then instructed me on how to withdraw the money from the website wallet and transfer it back to the Crypto app. All was successful. On February 5th Daniel messaged me and said that he had been watching the market and that it was a good time to trade and that the projection for Monday and Tuesday would be even better. He coerced me into putting another $260USD into the Crypto.com App after I had told him I didn’t want to. He lead me through the process again on how to purchase Tether coins and how to transfer all that to the website wallet. He then instructed me to buy 15 trading hands. The transaction was closed maybe 20 or 30 minutes later and he stated I had made $2032USDT. I requested he help me transfer it back to my account but he didn’t respond. On February 6th I initiated the transfer from the website wallet to the crypto app wallet. When it didn’t process in the amount of time it did for the first transaction, I messaged him. He suggested I message customer support. They told me that my transaction volume was insufficient so the transfer could not be completed. I asked how to make it sufficient and they stated that I needed to trade two more times. I confront Daniel about it but his messaging is sparse and flighty. On February 7th he tells me we need to trade again to get my transaction volume up. I trade, again following his instructions, using the current balance in the website wallet. After trading is complete, he tells me I made $17,700 in profit and that it should be sufficient enough to transfer. He then instructed me to ask customer service to tell me about tax points and tax amounts. Customer service said that my taxes would be $2044USDT and that I must remit the tax to the currency wallet supervised by the IMF International Monetary Fund Administration before February 10th at 23:00 “New York Time”. Daniel then tells me we have to purchase $2044USD in Tether coin to pay the taxes to the website. I question the validity of the website based on this information and he becomes angry.