NPR
Naum Lantsman was sure his cryptocurrency investments were making money. Every time he’d log on to the trading platform he was using, it looked like he was reaping windfall profits. But Lantsman, in fact, was one of a growing number of people who’ve fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams.
“I heard, and I read, but somehow I thought that I am not going to be one of them,” he said.
Lantsman, 74, turned to cryptocurrency investments after the pandemic upended his life. He runs a business selling equipment and supplies to restaurants in the Los Angeles area. But many of them shut their doors when lockdown orders went into effect.
“I lost a lot of clients because a lot of them, restaurant and bars, they closed,” Lantsman said.
At the same time, his retirement savings, which he managed himself, took a hit as the pandemic gyrated stock markets.
One day he was scrolling on Instagram and stumbled upon a post from a company called SpireBit. Its website says it is an “international financial broker” based in London, and helps people invest in cryptocurrencies.
Lantsman decided to try it.
An online friend and a false sign of success
After Lantsman opened an account, a company representative who called himself Pavel reached out on the messaging app Telegram. He wrote in Russian, Lantsman’s native language.
They began chatting regularly, swapping details about vacations and families and commiserating about their shared background in the former Soviet Union.
Lantsman had initially transferred $500 into his SpireBit account. It seemed promising: When he signed in to his account, it appeared as if that investment had nearly doubled in a matter of weeks.
Over several months, Pavel goaded him to invest more and more of his money. Eventually, Lantsman poured his entire life savings, totaling more than $340,000, into the SpireBit account.
“When he logged on to SpireBit, he saw a very compelling fake platform that looked like money was being deposited, and that money was growing,” said his son, Daniel Lantsman.
But it wasn’t growing at all. The charts on his SpireBit account depicting earnings growth were fake.
Lantsman discovered this when he attempted to withdraw money from his account. SpireBit sent over a document purporting to be from Barclays, the British bank. It said Lantsman must send SpireBit 2% of the amount he was requesting as a “security measure.” (A representative for Barclays confirmed that the document was forged.)
By this point, Lantsman was entrapped by the scam. When his son and daughter found out, it was too late. The money was gone.
“Obviously there’s like a shame component to this and coming to reality and grips with ‘Hey, I lost 100% of my family’s liquidity,'” said Lina O’Connor, Lantsman’s daughter…
