British widow loses £690,000 after Bitcoin and AI scams

A retired British widow has lost nearly £690,000 after being ripped off several times in a row. The fraud began after she lost money in 2020 with an investment in Bitcoin (BTC). After that, criminals took advantage of that previous loss by promising to get her money back.

The woman, who is called Elkie for her privacy, eventually fell for two new forms of fraud. First, she paid around £320,000 to people posing as first responders. After that, she lost another 370,000 pounds through an alleged artificial intelligence trading platform.

The story starts in 2020. Elkie invested £80,000 in Bitcoin through the now defunct Bright Finance. Her friend Graham also invested 80,000 pounds. The investment went wrong and Elkie lost her money.

Some time later, she was approached by people who claimed to be able to help her. They pretended to be persons connected to a police support service and told that her lost crypto assets had now been recovered.

According to the fraudsters, her original assets were now worth between £300,000 and £400,000. A Swiss court would have released the money.

There was only one condition attached to it. Elkie first had to pay £5,000 in transaction fees before she could receive her assets.

She transferred the money, but didn't get her Bitcoin back.

Instead, new costs were constantly added. Among other things, she had to pay for taxes, anti-money laundering checks and legal assistance. Each time, she was told that this was the last payment before her money would be released.

For example, the damage eventually amounted to around 320,000 pounds.

This is a well-known form of fraud where criminals target people who have lost money before. They promise to recover the lost assets, but keep asking for new payments.

It didn't stop there. Elkie then ended up with Webtrader Pro, a platform that claimed to be able to trade automatically with artificial intelligence.

Here, too, the fraudsters took extensive time to gain her trust. She had contact with several people behind the platform almost daily for about seven months.

That approach had to give the impression that she was dealing with a truly professional organisation. Elkie was even sent passport details and bank statements. Those documents turned out to be forged.

Assuming that her money was actually invested, she transferred more and more money. Eventually, she lost another approximately 370,000 pounds via Webtrader Pro. Her boyfriend Graham also lost money through the platform.

Whether her money was actually traded could not be determined. It has also not been confirmed that the promised AI trading system actually existed.

As a result, Elkie became a victim several times. First, she lost her original Bitcoin investment. She then paid around £320,000 to people who promised to recoup that loss. Then another £370,000 disappeared through the alleged AI trading platform.

That Elkie was victimized multiple times is probably no coincidence. In this type of fraud, data from previous victims may be shared or sold to other criminals.

As a result, a new scammer may already know how much money someone has lost, at which company that happened and what investment was involved. With that information, a story can sound much more believable.

This method is also called recovery room fraud. The criminals deliberately target people who have already lost money and are therefore extra motivated to get their assets back.

The use of artificial intelligence gives such fraud a new look. AI can actually be used for automated trading, but criminals can also simply use the term to make a fake platform sound reliable and sophisticated.

In June 2024, Elkie finally got help from Wealth Recovery Solicitors. Legal assistant Luke Caldwell and his colleagues then investigated where her payments had ended up.

Over a period of two years, they tracked transactions through three different bank accounts. According to the office, eventually about half of the total amount lost could be recovered.

“Scammers often target the same people multiple times and often impersonate police officers, regulators or collection agencies who offer to help recover money that has already been lost,” says Caldwell.

Elkie isn't alone in that. According to the UK fraud reporting service Report Fraud, approximately 27,000 people fell victim to prepayment fraud in the first six months of the year in question.

The case mainly shows how a first financial loss can be the beginning of a much larger fraud. Once a victim is known, they can be approached again by criminals who use that previous loss to gain trust.