One small withdrawal sold a Cobb County investor on a platform that did not exist

A Cobb County local is getting back the hundreds of thousands of dollars they lost to a fake crypto platform.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office followed the money to a crypto exchange and got a court order to send it back.

The fake platform looked real

The Attorney General’s Office stated that a stranger contacted the victim via social media.

This stranger used the names of mutual acquaintances to create a sense of familiarity before steering the conversation toward a supposedly lucrative crypto trade.

At the time, the platform allowed the victim to withdraw a small amount. This gave enough confidence to continue depositing. Then the account showed fake profits that made the balance look like it was going up.

After the victim had sunk hundreds of thousands, the site reported that everything was gone, and the perpetrator said the investment had disappeared.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation traced much of the victim’s funds to a cryptocurrency exchange.

From there, Carr’s White Collar and Cyber Crime Unit, working with its Investigations Section, secured the court order that forced the exchange to return the assets.

The nonprofit Operation Shamrock, which assists victims of crypto scams, worked the case with GBI.

“Cryptocurrency scams are designed to exploit trust, urgency, and the promise of easy financial gain,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said in the announcement. He added that anyone who has been a victim should report the crime to local law enforcement.

The scheme matches what federal advisories call “pig butchering.” Scammers spend weeks winning a target’s trust to pull in more money before vanishing.

Georgia’s new kiosk law raises the guardrails

A week earlier, Carr’s office announced a similar recovery for an elderly couple in Oconee County who were duped by someone posing as an FTC agent who convinced them to move cash into a virtual currency kiosk after a fake bank-breach warning.

In July, a retired Cobb County couple lost ~$800,000 to a scheme that used an AI-generated “ghost site” to fake real-time gains.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia returned $1.7 million in December.

In January, Massachusetts prosecutors asked a court to seize about $200,000 taken in a romance-investment scam.

In both cases, agents traced the money on-chain before prosecutors went to court.

The recoveries come weeks after Governor Brian Kemp signed House Bill 945 into law, effective July 1.

Virtual currency kiosks are required by law to put up a sign saying that losses from fraud or mistakes may not be recovered.

The statute mandates that kiosk operators limit transaction fees to 18% and offer refunds to first-time victims of scams within 72 hours.

Banks can place temporary holds on accounts they suspect are being used to financially exploit an older customer.

If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.