‘You get sucked in’: crypto scam victims on how they lost up to £162,000

A “sprat to catch a mackerel” is how one victim describes being reeled in by the skameri working from call centres hundreds of miles away in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It is the local term for scammers and a huge data leak reveals the inner workings of a fraud network that has tricked Britons out of £9m.

Like in any call centre, the script is always the same. For the victim it starts by clicking on a (fake) social media ad or news alert. The promotion tips a great crypto investment but it’s a trick, leading only to fraudsters impersonating a real business.

Eager investors hand over a relatively small sum at first, say £250, and before they know it – thanks to clever software displaying a seemingly live trading screen – they are getting rich. But the profit is fiction, serving as bait: victims lose the big money trying to cash out. The windfall is “just one step away”, blocked by the need for one more payment – a broker’s fee, or a tax bill. It only ends when the victim is broke.

The 1m audio files from the Georgia leak include the stories of thousands of victims. To uncover some of them we grouped calls by phone number, reviewing calls of 60 seconds or longer, and listened to how the scam unfolded. In some cases we spoke to those targeted about the impact it had on their lives.

Lucy, 61

135 calls, 45 hours
Losses: £100,000

Lucy was looking for an investment after retiring early for health reasons and was interested in the exciting world of crypto. Unfortunately this led the former retail worker to the scammers’ door. The brand they were promoting (AdmiralsFX) was a clone and over more than six months she lost nearly £100,000.

To make transferring money easier they told her to open an account with Chase UK (the British retail arm of US bank JP Morgan) as her current bank, Lloyds, was old-fashioned and didn’t “get” crypto. Initially it seemed to pay off as the investments she could see on her screen were rocketing in value. It was only when she tried to cash out that the stalling began.

One ruse was that her cash would be released if the account balance was topped up to over six figures. So she took out loans totalling £25,000 (with the direct lender Bamboo and the online bank Zopa). Of course the payday never arrived and, unable to afford the repayments on the high interest loans she and her husband cashed in their pensions to repay them. They are now living on a single state pension.

“Talking about it now it just sounds so stupid, but there you go. It was a very dark time for me and I have tried to overcome how it made me feel,” she says.

“Now I think, ‘Why on Earth did I go through with this if I didn’t understand it?’ But while I was on the phone I felt that I did. They were very, very clever.” Having convinced her to install a screen-sharing app when she was moving money they were in the background telling her what to do. “It is like being indoctrinated.”

When Lucy was unable to raise any more money, the scammer became menacing, sending a picture of her home. “They threatened my house when I refused to pay any more,” she says. “They said that they could take a charge out on my house.”

The irony, she says, is that she already had an equity-release mortgage. However the threat “was a very big wake-up call”. “You get sucked in. It’s a sprat to catch a mackerel.”

Derek, 69

331 calls, 135 hours
Losses: £162,000

One of the biggest financial casualties of the scam, the pensioner thought his crypto investments had turned him into a multimillionaire. In fact he’d lost it all.

After clicking on an article in his Google News feed, Derek was contacted by a firm called Golden Currencies. But it was also a clone. But he was drawn in as his investments soared in value, with fraudsters telling him they were worth $10m (£8m). “I had my doubts lots of times and when the guy told me ‘you are a millionaire now’ I said I will know it when I see the money.”

But Derek never did. Like other victims, every time he tried to cash out there was a problem that could only be resolved by putting in more. With such a big prize just out of reach he was pulled in deeper and deeper. He borrowed money from his brother and son, and even took out bank loans totalling £20,000 from Zopa and Shawbrook to secure the release of his small fortune.

Looking back, he says the key to the scam is that you become “so enthralled and influenced” by the person at the end of the phone. “Every time you challenged the financial rep, he’d say something that made you think you’d been daft asking a question.”

When the reality dawned Derek reported his losses to the numerous payment firms he had used as well as the authorities. So far he has been reimbursed £17,000 by the money transfer service Wise. This was only enough to repay the loans – he could not afford to keep up the repayments. While his refund claim is with the Financial Ombudsman he is trying to chip away at his other debts, with his adult son now living with him rent-free.

One victim says the scammers were ‘very, very clever’ on the phone. Photograph: Panther Media GmbH/Alamy

Ken, 64

290 calls, 55 hours
Losses: £24,000

Like many Britons Ken takes the word of Martin Lewis as gospel so when he came across a (fake) column by the personal finance guru tipping a currency trading site he took the plunge. He clicked on a link and handed over his details. “I got a phone call not long after,” he says.

The vulnerable pensioner was easy prey. The previous year he had been hospitalised for six months and nearly died after becoming ill with a rare autoimmune condition. He was slowly recuperating but the scammers were relentless, calling nearly 300 times. His initial stake was £250 but by the end he had lost nearly 100 times that amount.

His experience highlights the scammers’ mercenary tactics. At one point a family member answers a call and explains he is unwell. His father is “on drugs and not taking things in”, he explains, but instead of giving up the caller urges them to pay the £2,000 that is the only thing standing in the way of Ken’s £167,000 payout.

In a cruel twist another caller poses as a “recovery expert” able to get Ken’s money back. The fraudulent brokerage (AdmiralsFX) he has been dealing has been shut down by Interpol … if Ken hands over £2,000, he can “walk out of this with £72,000”, he promises.

“We didn’t have a lot but it is gone now,” says Ken who is on universal credit and also receives disability benefit. “I’m still feeling a bit ‘Why did you do it, you stupid idiot?’.” The pensioner reported the fraud to his banks (HSBC and Revolut) and expects about a third of his money to be refunded.

Theresa, 74

222 calls, 55 hours
Losses: £50,000

Sheltered housing affords vulnerable people some protection – but it did not shield Theresa from the scammers.

Living a frugal life on the outskirts of London – where her day seemed to revolve around trips to either the supermarket or the clinic for treatment – the retired NHS doctor decided to invest some of her savings in Golden Currencies. The results seemed instantly staggering.

Theresa’s agent told her that she had made £150,000 investing in crypto – but when she wanted to withdraw her winnings the scam kicked in.

A fake demand from HMRC required a £29,000 tax payment before the profits could be released – which Theresa felt uneasy about.

“I called HMRC and they said this sounds like a scam,” a suspicious Theresa told her “financial adviser”. “They said don’t pay it.”

“HMRC doesn’t know crypto,” the agent shot back, before insisting that her colleague at the call centre had similarly been an investor, had paid the taxes and then successfully received his stellar profits. “Don’t phone HMRC again. If he had believed them, he wouldn’t have got his money.”

Theresa caved in, paid the fake tax bill to the scammers and then paid a second fake capital gains tax bill. The transfers wiped out her savings, forced her to borrow from family and left her nursing losses of about £50,000. “I haven’t got £3,000,” she told the scam centre about one urgent demand. “I need to pay my rent.” The calls ended in July of last year. Public records suggest Theresa died in September.

* All names have been changed