In the past, dubious trading platforms have used the pictures and names of celebrities to call for the purchase of various cryptocurrencies. The CDU politician Friedrich Merz fell victim to the Profit Builder website last year.
The platform featured an article titled “Special report: Friedrich Merz’s latest investment leaves experts in big banks alarmed.” The report was written about the politician revealing his successful investments in Markus Lanz.
With a picture showing the two men in the Markus Lanz Studio, the whole thing looked plausible at first.
According to the article, an investment of just 250 euros is needed to become rich in a few days. The ads say that 43,000 Germans have already successfully invested in building profits on the website. In addition to the article about Friedrich Merz, pictures of alleged private individuals who are said to have already made significant profits were published.
The authenticity of the images could not be confirmed after examination. Some of the pictures are models from an international picture agency. Other selfies were probably stolen from social media platforms.
The scammers use well known logos, among other things
In order to convince users of the content of the article, the rip-offs use the ZDF logo, among other things. Because of the well-known logo, investors think this is an official announcement and trust it.
Headlines like “The rumors are confirmed. Every German gets 7475 euros”. With one or two clicks you will be on the platform of the scammers.
Markus Lanz is also a victim of fraud in this case, because the platforms use it with their TV show, just like the ZDF logo. The pictures, taken during an interview, should add seriousness to the readers.
Investors don’t see money or those responsible
If someone fell for this scam and registered on the platform, the result was telephone terror. Investors were encouraged to make quick transfers under numbers from overseas. As soon as the money arrived, contact with the alleged suppliers ceased.
No one looking for a solution could find it, because unless the intranet pages had already been deleted, no one responsible was listed on the platforms.
Print and contact options are missing. The domains are published anonymously, making tracking impossible.
Profit Builder is just one of the scammers platforms. Among other things, Bitcoin Profit and Bitcoin Code are also full of false reports and fake interviews.
The crooks also posted fake test reports from alleged experts online. The alleged scam of suppliers not only inspires confidence in customers, they also urge them to act quickly.
There are sentences like “due to the extremely high demand from the media” in the reports. There is talk of queues and that the portal will have to be closed soon due to too many requests.
This is intended to make buyers believe that they have found a real gold mine here and they need to strike fast now before this good offer is gone.
Different platforms, different faces
But the faces of Friedrich Merz and Markus Lanz were not the only ones used for this fraud. Investor Frank Thelen also fell victim to the scam in 2017.
Here, the scammers used an existing interview and skilfully edited it together. With a text suitable for the video, it was published on the BusyNews247 Facebook page and suggested that Frank Thelen had made several million euros by investing in Bitcoin.
E-mails intended to highlight the video said “Bitcoin millionaire reveals his secret” or “Investor who makes millions with the cryptocurrency”.
Here, too, the fraudsters acted cleverly. Frank Thelen is known from the TV show Höhle der Löwen, where he can invest in start-ups as one of five jurors. That will have inspired the confidence of the readers, as such a successful investor will surely know how things are going.
It is also known about Thelen that he also trades in cryptocurrencies and stocks. With the Bitcoin hype going on at the time, investors were presented with a perfect picture of a successful investment.
The two scams caused a stir and many things happen in a short time. But just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone.
All websites have been taken down, the videos and articles can no longer be found online. Hopefully not too many people fell for the scammers and lost their money.
However, anyone who made transfers is likely to be left with their losses, as it is still unknown who is behind the large-scale extortion.
But it can be assumed that this fraud was not the last of its kind. The Financial Services Regulator regularly issues warnings about emerging platforms that are under investigation.
However, since the fraudsters mainly operate from abroad and act anonymously, investigations are usually unsuccessful.
Friedrich Merz told test.de: “My name has been systematically and criminally misused here for a long time. I am not authorized to advertise any financial products”
Frank Thelen was also disappointed after the fraud was spotted on his blog. He hopes no one was hurt and says he had nothing to do with it. So you can only warn against Bitcoin fraud.
