Over time there have been different incidents with cryptocurrencies, but what has happened to this 74-year-old man has been terrible. The scam has been devastating and has wiped out all the savings that the victim had accumulated throughout his life. We tell you his story so you know what happened to him.
Let’s get in situation. We are talking about Naum Lantsman, a septuagenarian man who, during the pandemic, found himself going through a very difficult time. His restaurant equipment business stagnated as all of his clients stopped investing and some of them closed for good. As a way out of his plight, he took refuge in cryptocurrencies. That was the worst decision of his life.
a terrible moment
Cryptocurrencies found a great ally in the pandemic. Some made a lot of money, while others lost it. For Lantsman it was a good plan, since, in addition, it was the moment in which the market was rising. When he saw an ad on Instagram promoting a platform known as SpireBit, he caught the eye of the veteran entrepreneur. He looked good, it was reported and what he found did not make him suspect anything.
The old man created his account on SpireBit and received a call from a commercial shortly after. Interestingly, it was a man who had grown up in the Soviet Union like him and who spoke Russian. That helped this Los Angeles resident go all out with what he was offering. However, he wanted to be cautious and initially invested only $500. Surprisingly for him, the investment he had put on deposit soon grew.
They promised him millions
Naum Lantsman had not yet discovered that the platform he was using to invest in cryptocurrency did not, in fact, even exist. But he did discover that his $500 had almost turned into $1,000 in a matter of a few weeks. At SpireBit they decided to play him with the evil intelligence of big scams. They were patient, they didn’t chase him quickly, but they let the man make his own movie little by little.
Then it was time to press. The same platform agent she had spoken to earlier, named Pavel, called her back. Little by little he convinced him to continue investing. If he was making so much money on his investment, Lantsman thought it would make sense to keep pouring in more and more money relentlessly. The possibility of becoming a millionaire through his investment, of fulfilling the dreams that he had carried with him all his life, and of surprising his family, were enough for him to let himself go. In the end, he invested all of his life savings: $340,000, more than 300,000 euros in exchange. On the web he could see how his money grew and how successful automatic operations he made with cryptocurrencies were recorded without him having to touch anything.
Of course, there came a time when the victim wanted to withdraw part of his money and his winnings. The scammers knew that this was going to happen sooner or later. When that happened, he came across the security measures SpireBit had in place to prevent incidents. They asked him, through a Barclays bank document, to make a deposit of 2% of the money he was interested in withdrawing. Thus, the scammers still wanted more money even after they had already taken everything from this Los Angeles businessman. At that moment, it was obvious to Naum Lantsman: his life had been ruined.
He wasn’t the only one scammed
SpireBit not only stole from one victim, there were others. Exactly the same thing happened to Aleksey Madan, 68, although the amount he invested is unknown. The curious thing is that this man was also a citizen born in the Soviet Union, so it can be seen that possibly the crypto platform had a very defined type of victim he was addressing.
When the relevant investigations have been carried out by the authorities, characteristics about SpireBit have been confirmed that coincide with other scams on the market. They are platforms that are not regulated, that are not related to the cryptocurrency sector organizations and that have false professional profiles of their creators and workers. In this case, it was found that all the photos that the company’s team had on LinkedIn came from free websites.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing escapes many older users who are not as Internet savvy as younger or more experienced users. Also, it’s easy to get carried away in these kinds of situations where such irresistible promises are made. Unfortunately, SpireBit is still around.
When one of the NPR journalists, who uncovered this case, tried to register, he found that he had to invest a minimum of $350. By telling the web agent what they knew and what they had investigated, the answer he has given them is that these people may have been victims of another platform with the same name. A little more research seems to confirm that SpireBit is still the same scam that scammed Naum Lantsman and could therefore continue to steal from other people. Remember that there is no problem for you to invest in cryptocurrencies with a trusted platform, but be very careful with these types of scams capable of ending the savings of a lifetime.
