Digital currency suspected scammer appears in Alex court, gets bail
A man that allegedly ran a cryptocurrency investment scheme and managed to attract close to R2 million in investments has appeared in the Alexandra Magistrate's Court on a charge of fraud.
A 32-year-old man appeared in the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court on May 9 on charges of fraud and was granted R20 000 bail to appear again at the same court on June 9.
His appearance followed a court summons that was issued against him. It is reported that the accused, whose name is known to this publication but decided to withhold it until such time that he is asked to plead, operated a cryptocurrency investment scheme and met the victim in this case through a friend. The victim then invested a sum of R100 000 in the scheme.
After receiving several handsome returns on his investment, the victim was lured by this and decided to up the investment with a sum of R500 000 but then started to get half of his previous dividends this time around and after a couple of months he never received any dividends anymore.
The victim then tried to call the accused to enquire about his dividends but the accused was unreachable. A case was opened and transferred to the Johannesburg Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team and it was then that they discovered that other similar cases had been opened against the accused.
It is further alleged that the accused lured another victim by means of a radio chat and that victim invested R1,2 million into the scheme. After the summons was issued against him, the accused then handed himself over to the police on May 8 and appeared in court for the first time the following day.
The court granted him R20 000 bail and ordered him to appear again at the same court on June 9 as the police still needed to do further investigations into the case. The funds were not recovered.
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