{"id":249129,"date":"2018-06-03T07:42:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T05:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=249129"},"modified":"2018-06-03T07:42:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T05:42:54","slug":"bitcoin-scam-hits-more-south-africans-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/249129\/bitcoin-scam-hits-more-south-africans-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin scam hits more South Africans: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

More South Africans are reporting dodgy Bitcoin investment schemes to the police, following the\u00a0BTC Global scam<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is according to a report in the City Press, which quoted\u00a0Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi on the matter.<\/p>\n

The number of \u201csuspicious cryptocurrency investment schemes\u201d reported to police is increasing, and over 1,000 people who lost money in the\u00a0BTC Global scam have submitted\u00a0affidavits on the matter.<\/p>\n

BTC Global, which promised extremely large returns over short periods of time if you sent them your Bitcoin, caught out over 27,000 people \u2013 including South Africans and Australians.<\/p>\n

According to the Hawks, over $50 million was lost in the BTC Global scam \u2013 with South Africans investing between R16,000 and R1.4 million each.<\/p>\n

A tree feller from Pretoria East said he put R100,000 into the scheme, when the \u201cguaranteed 14% weekly returns\u201d stopped coming in.<\/p>\n

The City Press reported that another victim, a woman from\u00a0Kempton Park, wanted to invest her\u00a0pension payout in a high-return scheme, and a colleague suggested BTC Global.<\/p>\n

She invested R62,000 in total \u2013 R30,000 for herself, R17,000 for her husband, and R15,000 for her son.<\/p>\n

Of that, she lost R44,000 when BTC Global collapsed.<\/p>\n

More cases<\/h3>\n

The City Press has now reported that more people \u201care coming in every day\u201d with reports of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investment schemes and how they lost money.<\/p>\n

The warning signs of the latest\u00a0Bitcoin schemes include\u00a0financial rewards for recruiting new members, and\u00a0larger payouts for larger numbers of investors in the pool.<\/p>\n

To avoid becoming a victim to a\u00a0Bitcoin scheme<\/strong><\/a>, thoroughly research before investing your money.<\/p>\n

In the case of BTC Global, it was run by\u00a0\u201cmaster trader\u201d Steven Twain. A search for\u00a0Twain showed he did not exist, however.<\/p>\n

The Consumer Protection Act also describes any scheme that offers returns of 20% above the repo rate as a \u201cmultiplication scheme\u201d \u2013 otherwise known as a Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0<\/strong>Bitcoin could fall to $2,800 by the end of the year: analyst<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More South Africans are reporting dodgy Bitcoin investment schemes to the police, following the\u00a0BTC Global scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":226737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-249129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249131,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249129\/revisions\/249131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}