Citizens of Moldova and Romania are investigated for crytocurrency fraud as a result of which they caused damage totaling over 1.5 million Romanian lei. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Moldova, the suspects persuaded people from Romania to invest money in online investment platforms. The four arrested persons created false accounts on social networking sites connected to inexistent companies. The 32 identified victims had been chosen through social networking sites as from 2020, including through advertisements of influencers from the Romanian showbiz, IPN reports.

The suspects promised the contacted persons that in at most two months they would obtain guaranteed profit, even of 95%. They were told that if they invested €100, they would get back twice more. To earn the trust of victims, these were initially persuaded to transfer small sums of money as an investment and were later transferred their money back plus the so-called profit. The ill-gotten gains were transferred to scammers’ accounts in Moldova.

The police and prosecutors carried out over 20 searches in 11 locations in Romania and also in Moldova, in Chisinau, Fălești and Ungheni. They seized bank cards, mobile phones and other electronic information carriers. A luxury car estimated at €40,000 was seized from the presupposed organizer of the scam.

Twenty persons are to be investigated as suspects. These are aged between 20 and 30 and hadn’t been tried earlier. Some of them are students studying in Romania.