A woman in Australia who lost more than a million in a widespread scam was on holiday in China with her husband when she suddenly encountered one of the criminals. The woman, who did not want to be identified, runs a Chinese immigration and education business. talking to news.com.auShe said she was distraught after learning that the fraudsters had defrauded her for almost a year through a fake online trading platform, before finally breaking up with her after draining her bank account.
It all started when the woman received a text message from a man named Wei Chen, asking her how she was. At first, she asked the man who he was, however, she did not find the message worrying or strange as she runs a Chinese immigration and education business. “I thought my friends or clients introduced him to me,” she told the outlet.
Later, both of them became good friends. They messaged each other on WeChat and WhatsApp about food and how they both moved to Australia. Chen told her that he was a permanent resident who ran a furniture store and lived in a house worth more than $12,000,000 in an expensive suburb of Sydney.
After all, Chen mentioned that he bets his fortune on an investment trading website called SpreadX. Notably, a legitimate company by this name exists in the UK as a sports betting and financial trading company, which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Chen convinced the woman to invest some money. He had $191,215.50 in savings and over time he put all the money in, and then some more. The woman also revealed that she encouraged her friends to invest in the scheme and also borrowed money from them.
Unfortunately, the company she was working with was actually run by a group of scammers. In December last year – six months after the woman invested – the UK financial watchdog issued a warning, pointing out that scammers were using an extra ‘s’ in the domain spreadexs.com instead of spreadx.com. Were using. The Australian government also issued a warning about the fraudulent site.
The woman had already invested all her savings on the platform. She even borrowed another $286,823.25 from friends and repaid the mortgage she shared with her husband. On his encouragement, some of his school friends also invested.
The woman told the outlet that she wanted to continue investing on the platform while she was in China on vacation. Then the scammers told her that she could hand over the cash directly to them when she was in mainland China. She met a man in what she described as a “far dark place” and gave her more than 500,000 yuan in cash.
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While abroad, the woman also left her SpreadX trading account in the hands of Chen, whom she considered her mentor at this time. But when she returned, she tried to withdraw some of her money but her trading account was suddenly suspended.
The scammers then told him he would have to pay a risk fee to withdraw the cash. They also fined him because he let someone else handle his account.
The woman said her last contact with Chen was in April, meaning he continued the trick for almost a year. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact them, Roxy and her husband concluded that it was a scam and alerted the police in September this year.
The woman said she still owed the money taken from her friends and the mortgage. Victoria Police is still investigating the woman’s case.
