On-chain sleuth, ZachXBT, stepped in to help an elderly American recover $275,000 stolen by scammers posing as Coinbase Support.
The incident happened in April when Indian call scammers targeted the victim and managed to steal a large portion of their life savings.
Zach said the stolen funds were seized and returned to the victim, but his investigation found over $5 million stolen from other victims by the same group.
These scammers laundered funds from Ethereum and Bitcoin into TRON through centralized exchanges before transferring them into stablecoins via over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
Elderly targeted in growing crypto scams
In 2023, crypto scams cost U.S. victims over $5.6 billion. Elderly people, those aged 60 and above, were hit the hardest.
More than 16,000 complaints were filed by this group, with reported losses exceeding $1.6 billion. That makes seniors the most vulnerable group, suffering the highest financial losses among all demographics.
The FBI’s Cryptocurrency Fraud Report revealed that almost 40% of the total reported losses from scams targeting them were tied to crypto fraud. That’s a huge spike compared to previous years. In 2022, the reported losses were $2.57 billion, a 53% increase in just one year.
One report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) showed that in 2023, elderly victims lost over $1.2 billion to online investment fraud, which includes crypto scams.
This was up from $990 million last year. Scams come in many forms. One of the most common types is the so-called “pig butchering.”
In this, fraudsters build fake relationships with their victims over time, gaining their trust. Then they convince them to invest in bogus cryptocurrency platforms.
The promise? Huge returns with minimal risk. The result? Their money disappears. There’s also been a huge rise in scammers using Bitcoin ATMs to extract funds from victims.
In 2023 alone, reported losses tied to these scams exceeded $110 million. The elderly are three times more likely than younger people to fall for these schemes.
Another common scam is the one where the fraudsters pretend to be tech support or government officials. They scare their victims into transferring money, sometimes pretending they need to “fix” a technical issue or handle an urgent financial situation.
In one case, a victim lost $31,500 after being tricked by scammers pretending to be tech support agents and bank employees. The average loss per elderly victim in these crypto scams is reported to be $33,915.
In 2023, the number of complaints jumped 11% compared to 2022, reaching levels close to the record highs of 2020.
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