Fraudsters use Telegram app to offer bogus investment opportunities

By Neesa Moodley

7 Jul 2024

Fraudsters on social media are impersonating or claiming to represent legitimate service providers.

Less than a month after the Association for Savings and Investments South Africa (Asisa) issued an alert about social media scams, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FCSA) issued a warning of a scam on the Telegram platform.

Fraudsters impersonating Freedom Capital Investment Managers and Victoria Leigh Cook are claiming via the Telegram messaging app that they offer investment opportunities in cryptocurrency trading, forex trading and gold mining, promising substantial profits.

The FSCA says there appear to be three purported trading plans: a beginners plan, a premium plan and a VIP plan.

“They claim that investors can earn eight times their initial capital within six days. [We have] learned that the scam operates by requiring clients to select a trading plan, purchase Bitcoin to fund a trading account and deposit funds using a provided address. The scammers then trade on behalf of the clients for a 10% commission on the total profit,” said the FSCA.

Freedom Capital, which is an authorised financial services provider (FSP) has confirmed to the FSCA that it is not affiliated with the individuals conducting this scam and has no connection to the promises made on Telegram. The FSCA has urged the public to be wary of investment schemes on messaging and social media platforms and to independently contact the companies concerned to verify any offerings on social media.

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A group called Indiberries offered unrealistic 45% returns and put in a link to Fedgroup’s website as verification of its legitimacy.

Warren Winchester, the general manager of ventures at Fedgroup, said the company was made aware that Indiberries was redirecting to the Fedgroup website illegally because Indiberries’ website had been taken down.

“We have already engaged with a domain registrar to have this link removed and have reported the matter to the local financial regulator. It turned out to be an international syndicate and the international domain registrar broke the link to our website at our request,” he told Daily Maverick.

10X Investments has similarly distanced itself from a Telegram group named 10X Traders — which has almost 72,000 members. The group admins are supposedly Anton Eser, who is actually the chief investment officer at 10X Investments, Caroline Naylor-Renn, the chief operating officer at 10X Investments, and Bianca Philogene, a portfolio manager at 10X Investments.

This particular scam has been doing the rounds for a while, hence the high number of members. 10X put out an alert six months ago, stating: “Beware of Telegram groups falsely advertising 10X investment services. These groups are not affiliated with 10X or its staff members. Report these groups directly on the application and do not engage or invest.”

Attempts to engage with the supposed Anton Eser on the Telegram group were unsuccessful, popping up with the message: “Sorry, you can only send messages to mutual contacts at the moment.”

Peregrine Capital issued a similar warning in January. The company said there were numerous Telegram scams falsely claiming to be associated with investment companies including Peregrine Capital.

“We communicate only formally through direct channels (e-mail), our website and Peregrine Capital’s social platforms (Facebook and LinkedIn),” said Henry Huysamen, chief technology officer.

Unsuspecting victims are typically added to the Telegram groups without their consent and then receive updates about crypto or other investment scams. Huysamen said the scams involved investing money to get unbelievable returns in 30 to 60 days.

“Participants may initially receive small rewards to gain their trust. However, scammers ultimately aim to convince victims to pay or deposit money to claim larger rewards and then steal those funds,” he said.

He advised that unexpected invitations to Telegram groups should be viewed with suspicion. If you do receive an unsolicited Telegram invite, you can press the “report scam and leave” button, which is usually at the top of the screen. Huysamen said if the button was missing, you should “open group profile”, click the three dots for “more options” and choose “report”, followed by “fake account”.

You can also send an email to [email protected] so the central Telegram team can follow up on your complaint. DM

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