A safe investment through one online platform, capable of producing profits in a short time without putting the initial capital at risk. Too bad it was a scam, yet another one starring so-called financial brokers who hide behind a screen. A trap into which dozens of citizens fall every year. It also happened to a 60-year-old entrepreneur from Turin, who in recent days relied on the lawyer Antonio Vallone to deposit a complaint complaining of having been misled and having lost the sum of in a few months 275 thousand euros.
The first plots of the scam were woven in December last year, when the victim was contacted by an advisor who feared the possibility to do online trading. Day after day, through numerous telephone contacts, the broker gains the sixty-year-old’s trust and finally convinces him of the goodness of the investment. In the beginning, in fact, everything seems absolutely in order: the consultant is available and professionally trained, the platform on which to operate has positive feedback and even the contracts appear “transparent”.
But you can never be too careful, so much so the entrepreneur initially invests only 250 euros. “I opened my personal position on the platform and in a short time I began to make the first fake profits”, explains the victim in the complaint. At that point, it was easy for the skilled broker and his accomplices, who gradually interfaced by telephone with the investor, to convince him to risk a larger capital based on the logic that the more you invest, the more you earn. In the first three months of this year, the 60-year-old thus pays 275 thousand euros, making three different transfers to as many IBANs. «My money was transferred, through cryptocurrencies, to virtual wallets suggested by the consultant, who, having my identity documents, often followed me in all operational steps».
The scam is completed at the end of March: when the entrepreneur asks to be able to return the capital accrued on the platform, the broker explains to him that to release the money it is necessary to start a complex procedure which involves the payment of taxes and deposit commissions. At that point the 60-year-old had his first suspicions, carried out some research and discovered that the company he was operating with had already claimed other victims in the same way. From here the decision to file a complaint for aggravated fraud, providing all the information in his possession to be able to unmask the fake brokers and attempt to regain possession of the money.
The man is one of the many victims who every year fall into the trap of so-called consultants who operate in online trading. Last year the postal police collected 166 complaints, calculating damage of around 5 million euros for savers. Figures that represent only the tip of the iceberg if we take into account that many do not report, often out of shame.
