A Bulgarian individual lost a substantial amount of money to criminals, who purportedly gave him the chance to profit from cryptocurrency investments. The scheme used was a call center operation that promised speedy returns from both the crypto and stock markets.

Defrauded Bulgarian Crypto Investor Sends Funds To International Bank Accounts

A Bulgarian entrepreneur transferred more than 1,000,000 leva (over $550,000) to scammers, who promised him he could make big money from crypto assets. According to a report from Bulgarian national broadcaster BNT. He was deceived into sending the funds to accounts in different banks across Europe and Hong Kong.

The initial contact with the investor was made by a call center. They promised high returns from crypto investments. After some communication, they were able to convince him to triple his money in a short time. When the man showed interest, they connected him to an encrypted chat and arranged for an online account.

“The details of the victim (name and phone number) were likely obtained from a platform on which he signed up,” said Commissioner Vladimir Dimitrov of the cybercrime unit at the Ministry of Interior.

The businessman, whose identity was not revealed by the investigators, was then offered to make a small deposit of €250 that was multiplied multiple times in a few weeks, in digital assets. Later he sent tens of thousands of euros to a receiver with Polish, British and Chinese banks.

The call center, from which the target person got the initial call in this case, was believed to be located somewhere in the Middle East, Bulgarian officials said. However, it is still unclear what country the organizers of this fraudulent scheme came from.

The scam is a modern criminal trend in Europe. It is done by using call centers to attract victims into buying shares in well-known companies or cryptocurrency.

In mid-January, authorities in Bulgaria, Serbia, Cyprus and Germany, in collaboration with Europol and Eurojust, dismantled a whole network of call centers “luring victims into investing large sums of money in fake cryptocurrency schemes.” In September last year, Ukrainian police arrested another similar criminal group, that was defrauding investors across the country.

Do you think that this trend of scammers using call centers to obtain money from crypto investors will continue? Please leave a comment below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a tech-savvy Eastern European journalist who loves to explore the Hitchens’ quote: “Being a writer is who I am, more than what I do.” His two sources of inspiration are cryptocurrency, fintech, and blockchain.