A Daytona Beach Shores man was ensnared by a cryptocurrency investment scam that cost him $317,000 after he received a text from an attractive stranger asking him to let her dog out while she was out of town, according to new federal court records.
The man, identified only as Victim 1 in federal court records, wrote the stranger back to say she had the wrong number, but the chatty stranger kept the conversation going.
Astrid Orlov was how the stranger introduced herself. She lived with her uncle in Lake Nona, a bustling Orlando neighborhood.
Orlov and the man moved the conversation to What’sApp, then to video chat although the man couldn’t see her at all. Poor Internet connection was Orlov’s explanation why he couldn’t make out her face.
The court records don’t indicate if the tone of their conversations were platonic or romantic but their talks eventually turned to money. Gold, to be precise. And crypto.
Orlov said she successfully traded gold online and credited her success to her uncle who “would watch algorithms to determine what was going to happen daily with the price of gold,” according to federal court records filed this week in U.S. District Court’s Middle District of Florida in Orlando.
That convinced the man to invest in the trading platform XM Defi.
At Orlov’s urging to get things moving, he wire transferred $5,000 from his bank account to a Crypto account he started for her and then bought Bitcoin which he sent to the address Orlov gave him for XM Defi.
“‘Orlov’ instructed Victim 1 as to when he should buy and sell assets through the website to make a profit,” the federal court records said. “Following his initial investment, Victim 1 was able to view what he learned to be fictitious ‘earnings’ on the website.”
It seemed legit since he withdrew about $278 in cryptocurrency from his XM Delfi account to his Crypto.com account.
–Gabrielle Russon, Florida Politics
JimboXYZ says
Catfish phishing. makes one wonder if the Crypto criminal started on Grindr like that LGBTQ teen that lured the pastor for lying about being an adult to be on Grindr in the 1st place. Had to start somewhere in the ways of the Catfish schemes for fraud & abuse.
Skibum says
OMG… the reason these scams persist is because there are too many suckers in society who fantasize that they will make a grand profit with just a little investment, based on nonsense from people they don’t even know!
It is not uncommon for anyone to receive text messages from strangers and unknown numbers. I received one the other day saying something like “I know we haven’t talked in a long time. How are you?” I immediately blocked the unknown number and checked the box in the phone’s spam blocker indicating it was spam. Nobody is going to get rich from anonymous people contacting you, except the fraudsters if you fall for this type of scam!
Laurel says
I get what I believe are malicious texts, mostly political, fairly frequently, but some really questionable. My phone could probably scroll half the day with the reported spam list.
Recently I got the text “Hey, I just recovered my contacts list in my phone. Who are you again?”
None of your damned business! Blocked. Reported.
Whether text, email or call, if I don’t know you, I’m not answering!
Oh, I almost fell for one. It was my friend’s email writing me “Hi! Haven’t talked in awhile, how have you been?” I wrote “Hi, Doreen, how the hell are you?” It came back with an apology and a request for money! Something my friend wouldn’t do. I hovered the pointer over *her* email address which then showed an .edu address, though the address shown on the email was Doreen’s name and legit address. Someone had managed to get to my account, and hijacked Doreen’s email name, and it appears to have been a student using some school’s system.
I won’t write here what I wrote back, but I never heard from the idiot again.
Al says
A fool and his money are quickly parted. What amazes me is how these people amass a large amount of savings then fall for this crap.
Laurel says
Cons work on people’s greed. There is usually a promise of money to come of you would only help out now!
Anthony says
This guy that lonely that he has to follow this trend??? No sympathy for him!
Laurel says
Cons work on people’s greed. There is usually a promise of money to come of you would only help out now!