DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — A private investigator and federal agents sought to help a woman recover some of the money she sent to a scammer after she was fooled into believing she was talking with a cryptocurrency founder on Instagram.
While the scam happened in 2022, new court documents were filed this year in Colorado's U.S. District Court that describes how Secret Service Agents froze an account that had some of the money that had been scammed.
9NEWS found the woman originally reported the scam to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. A report from the agency describes how the woman believed she was engaging with Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH).
The woman was then directed to a website that contained Buterin's image and a giveaway promotion.
"The false Instagram post said that anyone who would send 1 ETH coin would receive 2 in return," a police report reads.
After sending $158,162 worth of ETH, the woman eventually realized the account she was engaging with was not Buterin, but a scammer. According to the sheriff's office report, investigators believe the scammer lives overseas.
"This case was turned over to the Secret Service. This case is not prosecutable on a local level due to the suspect being in Kazakhstan," the police report says.
The woman hired a private investigative firm that specializes in cryptocurrency fraud. After the firm was able to trace some of the funds to an online account, documents reveal investigators with the Secret Service were able to freeze the account containing approximately $17,000.
Paul Sibenik, CEO of CryptoForensic Investigators, said the amount lost in this scam is larger than what people typically lose in such schemes.
"It generally targets people who are not knowledgeable or familiar with cryptocurrency or relatively new to cryptocurrency," Sibenik said during an interview with 9NEWS.
"Cryptocurrency transactions by their nature are not reversible. So once it's gone, it's gone," Sibenik said.
If you have any information about this story or would like to send a news tip, you can contact jeremy@9news.com.
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