Africa has become a hotbed of bitcoin fraud: these few scam companies can bitter the African people…

There is such a sentence on the Internet to describe the investment indeed, investment has always been a gamble in the wealthy insurance, especially in cryptocurrency investment.

Since cryptocurrency is still a new thing, the cryptocurrency investment environment is mixed, and it is difficult for investors to tell whether their funds are to fund a decentralized innovation or directly into the pockets of scammers. Fortunately, after government management, China’s bitcoin fraud has been reduced a lot. However, in the far-away Africa, because the people do not understand the blockchain, the government supervision is not in place, and a painful tragedy that causes people to lose money and their families to break down is being staged.

What kind of routines do Bitcoin fraud usually use? How can we prevent it? Let us go to Africa to find out.

Africa has become a hotbed of bitcoin fraud

What is the biggest evil of money?

Bitcoin's bear market in 2018 caused Bitcoin scammers to stop for a while, but recently, with the skyrocketing bitcoin price, the dark clouds over the cryptocurrency have dissipated, and these scammers have begun to re-emerge. The cryptocurrency is eager to try, it can be said: "The rain stopped, the weather was fine, and the scammers felt that they were doing it ."

Africa is a hotbed of cryptocurrency scams, which is already an open secret. Limited by the development of the economy, people in Africa are often poorly educated and very poor, and thus inevitably have a weak awareness of fraud prevention. The scammers in Europe and the United States have noticed this, so they strongly recommend to African people “investment products” that can make huge gains in a short period of time.

However, these poor investors did not receive high returns, and even the principal did not disappear. The scammers ran a few months after they got the money, and the investment was also squandered, which made investors less economical.

The raging cryptocurrency scam is hard to prevent. Slowly, more and more African people are beginning to lose confidence in the cryptocurrency, so that there is such a phenomenon: if you inadvertently mention a friend who is a friend of a relative or friend And bitcoin, he will interrupt you immediately, and tell you why "bitcoin" itself is a scam. Behind the topic, it is the pain of blood and tears .

In this article, I will list some of the worst cryptocurrency scams on the African continent, and it is these scams that have led to delays in blockchain technology on the African continent.

let's start.

Mavroji Global Piggy Bank

Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox (MMM) is one of the oldest and largest Ponzi schemes in the world.

MMM was founded by the convicted Russian scammer Sergei Mavrodi. On its official website, the company defines itself as a financial mutual aid organization, in which members help each other. It is not a financial plan, nor a pyramid scheme. It is called “ none .” Capital outflows will not run for 100 years ." Since its inception in 2007, the company has been operating in many countries.

Global MMM members take photos

The rise of Bitcoin drove Mavroji's global piggy bank into the African market in 2012 . At the end of 2017, Mavroji's global piggy bank was popular in Kenya, and that was the first time I heard about it. At that time, a friend's mother tried to convince me to pay the membership fee to become her downline. When I hesitated, she promised me that the investment in bitcoin and cash would be 50%.

A lot of things happened during the period, and a long story was short. In the end, I didn't get involved because I didn't have enough funds to pay the membership fee. This is also one of my few moments to rejoice that I have no money, because the platform collapsed just a few months after the founder of the Mavroti Global Piggy Bank died.

Before the looting of the Kenyan people, Mavroji’s global piggy bank used the same method to defraud thousands of South Africans and Nigerians’ life savings.

The decentralization of Bitcoin was originally intended to free people from bank and social inequality, and Mavroji’s global piggy bank took advantage of this vision and publicized it to open up the African market. In Nigeria and Kenya, Mavroji's global piggy bank claims to be a mutual fund platform, and users can donate their own bitcoin to a pool of shared funds, thereby achieving a 50% investment income.

 

MMM founder: Mavdiro

Nigerian Calabar Company

There are many people in Nigeria who are engaged in online fraud, which is notorious. Therefore, the bitcoin fraud that swept Nigeria is also equivalent to karma.

In April 2018, a Bitcoin company in Calabar, Nigeria, ran with millions of Nigerian Naira (about tens of thousands of yuan) invested by customers.

According to the Guardian, more than 1,000 people have been tempted to invest in the Bitcoin trading company after being promised a 30% interest rate a week. However, the company has closed down for only a few weeks, all investors. Are in trouble.

After this scam, the Nigerian government advertised the negative effects of fraud in the process of Bitcoin's landing to warn citizens not to invest in cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Global (BTC GLOBAL)

It must be said that the name Bitcoin Global has a high-end atmosphere, and the high-end has a feeling of being unbelievable, but it is true.

In May 2018, Bitcoin, a bitcoin trading company based in South Africa, carefully planned a scam that caused thousands of investors to lose more than $80 million.

In the process of setting up the game, Bitcoin is a different way around the world. It targets the public figures and attracts them with 2% interest per day, 14% interest per week, and 50% interest per month. However, after only two weeks of business, Bitcoin has run with huge amounts of money around the world.

Bitcoin lottery scam

(BITCOIN LOTTERY SCAM)

Just a few months later, in January 2019, a new bitcoin fraud method swept through South Africa again.

This time, the scammers are no longer using short-term, high-yield scorpions to draw pies, but to make fake lottery tickets to fool those who want to get rich overnight. In the scam, users need to pay some bitcoin to buy lottery tickets, the so-called "winner" can get a grand prize worth 70,000 dollars.

The routines here are the same as those in the United States. Scammers use the celebrity endorsements to gain public trust. In addition, hackers control the official Twitter account of the South African Cricket League and use it to promote scams.

Fortunately, this scam was debunked very early. The South African Cricket League also noticed that the official Twitter account was stolen, and immediately clarified on Twitter and told fans not to participate.

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VELOX 10 GLOBAL

In March 2019, a Brazilian investment company, Velox 10 Global, closed down after a year of operation. Thousands of Kenyan investors lost their blood and fell into desperation.

Velox 10 Global is a big deal, and the company's opening ceremony was held in one of Kenya's most expensive hotels. In order to be more grounded in operation, the company also hired a team of local marketers.

The grandeur makes Velox 10 Global attract thousands of Kenyan investors during the company's operations, some of which have an investment of up to 3 million Kenyan shillings (about 30,000 US dollars, two 100,000 RMB). In order to join the investment institution, the user must pay a registration fee of $100 to become a member, and the company promises to return the member a daily interest of $4,000.

The company is also committed to its top investors, giving them the opportunity to meet with business leaders and let these business leaders teach them how to get wealth quickly.

After the looting of Mavroji's global piggy bank and VELOX 10 GLOBAL two scams, more and more Kenyans are beginning to be skeptical about investing in cryptocurrencies. The image of cryptocurrencies in Kenyans is also increasingly fraudulent. near.

Victims of the VELOX 10 GLOBAL scam were interviewed by the National Center and lost 3.2 million Kenyan shillings in the scam.

Figure / Francis Andettiu National Media Group

Bitcoin Wallet (BITCOIN WALLET)

As the second largest economy in Africa, South Africa has been favored by many scammers.

According to reports, in June 2019, a company called Bitcoin Wallet earned more than $130,000 per day by bitcoin fraud.

The Bitcoin Wallet Company is located in a village in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The company uses the current phenomenon of bitcoin price blows to promise 100% investment income to unsuspecting investors .

Bitcoin wallets target fraud to poor and uneducated villagers because they don't understand the workings of Bitcoin.

Specifically, the price of Bitcoin has never soared by 100% in three weeks, and any investor will know this fact as long as they do their homework. However, by locking in the rural population (these people don't know that bitcoin prices can't double in such a short period of time), Bitcoin wallets can scam hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment every day.

The CEO of Bitcoin Wallet Company claims that the company makes money by buying and selling bitcoin and only charges the customer a 10% management fee.

This business model quickly became popular in just a few months, so that membership fees also rose, from $6.74 to $337.

However, the good news is not long, the local news media claimed that this business model is a Ponzi scheme with a bitcoin coat.

In the suspicion, the allegations that the Bitcoin wallet company is a Ponzi scheme are becoming more and more real. In early July 2019, the founder of the Bitcoin Wallet Company disappeared, and angry investors ransacked and set fire to his home.

A large number of residents gathered outside the office of the Bitcoin wallet to ask for a statement

Figure / Simphiwe-Mbokazi / African News Agency (ANA)

Although you may not be in Africa

But how to avoid being the same routine pit?

Has your family or friend told you that investing in Bitcoin is the most advanced and profitable way to invest? Have your colleagues advertised to you those investment opportunities that sounded too unreal? Have you received advertising emails that promote short-term, high-yield bitcoin investments?

If you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast, you are likely to encounter one or more of the above scenarios.

So how do you identify cryptocurrency scams? I have summarized several features of these cryptocurrency scams that you can evaluate from these perspectives:

1. Promise abnormal high returns

Most of the bitcoin scams mentioned above are multi-level marketing (MLM, which has a more grounded name: MLM ) scam . These scams often rely on layered marketing to attract more users.

One of the most common features of a multi-level marketing scam is to promise users an abnormally high return . For example, companies that promise to invest 100% in just a few weeks are likely to be Pyramid-style MLM.

The three scams of Mavroji Global Piggy Bank, Bitcoin Wallet and Velox 10 Global all use multi-level marketing strategies to attract more people to participate. They promise to bring index-level benefits to investors, and in the real bitcoin market, they don't get such high returns .

Therefore, when you are ready to invest in a Bitcoin company, be sure to compare the company's promised rate of return and the performance of the bitcoin market at this time . Specifically, if the current market for the Bitcoin market is only 10% of the weekly earnings, then you should take a good look at the companies that promise you 100% of the weekly earnings.

In addition, be aware that bitcoin prices are highly volatile. Therefore, any company that promises you a high return is either knowing inside information that no one else knows, or is lie to you. Considering the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, it is more likely that an investment company will be able to control the price of Bitcoin and is more likely to lie to you.

 

2. High-pressure sales strategy

“Please consider becoming our first investor. If you become our pioneer investor, as more and more investors join the company, you can get more and more benefits, these benefits are much higher than other early Investors. Even if there is something wrong with the company in the later period (in other words, the scammers are running away), you can at least get back your own funds. "

In order for me to invest in Mavroj’s global piggy bank, my friend’s mother used exactly the same words as this one. She promised me that if I became an early investor, I could get it from Mavroji’s global piggy bank. More revenue.

These high-pressure sales strategies spur the urgency of investing and induce you to rush to invest without having enough due diligence on the company.

If Bitcoin has been urging you to invest "as early as possible", then you have to be careful. Because it is very likely that when you are waiting for new investors to join in paying dividends, the so-called investment company has already taken away your money and ran away.

 

3. Enrollment requires expensive training fees

“If you want to join an investment company, all you have to do is invest $100 and pay for the training.”

This is the universal speech of the African Bitcoin multi-level marketing scam. From Mavroji's global piggy bank to Bitcoin globally, investors must pay a high membership fee or a high training fee, and even more than two fees must be paid.

A normal company trains its marketing team for free, organizes annual meetings for team members, and arranges social events with business purposes.

If an investment company promises you a high amount of income but requires you to invest a large amount of training costs, this is a big scam. You must stay away from it like a plague.

4. Does the company's founder have a criminal record?

Do you invest your savings in those who have a financial criminal record? Or are those who have no evidence that they understand financial investment?

Among the scams mentioned above, the founders of many companies are either criminals who have been convicted or are ignorant of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Sergei Mavrodi, founder of Mavroji Global Piggy Bank, was previously sentenced in Russia for financial crimes. Spelele “Sgumza” Mbatha, the founder of Bitcoin Wallet, was a nursing staff at the hospital. He did not receive any blockchain technology and financial business training before he founded Bitcoin Wallet.

If you don't want your savings to be taken away by fraudsters who have a criminal record or who don't know anything about investing, you should do as much as possible to the company's team before investing, if you find that the company's team may have If you have a big hidden danger, then don't invest.

 

The future of Bitcoin depends on our actions

Bitcoin can help African countries eradicate poverty. However, scammers use the advanced technology that should promote social progress to defraud, which has brought a great negative impact on the reputation of the bitcoin of the cryptocurrency, and has greatly hindered the landing of blockchain technology in Africa.

As an investor, you must avoid falling into the microwave oven thinking (doing something like a microwave hot meal, simply pursuing speed and forgetting the fun of cooking). Rome was not built in one day, and it was unrealistic to succeed overnight. If an investment company promises you unprecedented high returns, you must think twice. Before investing in any cryptocurrency company, you must conduct due diligence.

Today, in the blockchain field marketing and scam flooding, the basic knowledge of the blockchain, telling the core and concept of the blockchain is particularly important.

Let them know that bitcoin represents a voice, an inviolable money that is not controlled by anyone. Also teach them how to identify those scammers who try to break the blockchain's original intention to discredit the blockchain.

The road to the mainstream of the blockchain is inseparable from the efforts of each of our blockchain enthusiasts.

Source | Bitcoin

Compilation | Guoxi

Produced | Blockchain Base Camp (blockchain_camp)

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