PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MAC VENUCCI, AUTHOR
I received a death threat from the scammers on February 14, 2022. It has not stopped me – if anything, it has empowered me to help others.
If you have had any contact with the criminals behind this massive scam, please leave a comment below and share your experience. You will be doing God’s work and helping others. I am proud to say that we have saved many people from falling for this evil scam. All we can do is put enough information out there and help and hope the government catches them.
The Cryptocurrency Crime Wave Is Growing By The Day
Cocaine and human trafficking have traditionally been the crime of choice for transnational criminal organizations. However, cryptocurrency scams and forex trading scams have become new hyper-growth industries. It yielded over $14 billion in 2021 – that is nearly twice the $7.8 billion reported in 2020.
Earlier this year, I reported on a new crypto and forex scam run by Seus International Group. This morning, an anonymous source that identified himself only as “Barracuda”, provided Fox Chronicle with information connecting Seus International Group to at least other 30 companies and websites.
“This is not just a simple scam as you originally reported,” according to Barracuda, “Seus International is a small node in a transnational criminal empire with outposts in various countries throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States.”
Based on the number of websites and what is known about Seus International’s activity, this criminal organization may be responsible for up to $100 million in total losses to victims around the globe over the last two years.
Here are some tips to recognize the scam:
- You were contacted on social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) or an online dating site (Tinder, Bumble, etc.). A “friendly” online relationship is developed. The scammer mentions an investment opportunity but doesn’t insist.
- The contact was generally made by a Chinese woman who claims to have a special relationship.
- The website utilizes Meta Trader 5 software and offers a login, user name, and password.
- The scammer lets the victim practice trading on a demo account.
- The website is authorized and supervised by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
- Customer service is provided through WhatsApp.
- Your initial few trades are super profitable.
- You are allowed to cash out a small amount so you build trust in the scammer.
- The scammer creates an urgency to get you to invest more money.
- The scammer tries to convince you not to share the “investment” with your family.
- The scammer tries to convince you to empty your retirement accounts.
- The scammer tries to convince you to refinance your home.
- You are unable to withdraw any part of your investment.
- If you complain, the scammer claims you owe even more money and threatens you with legal action.
An FBI Public Service Announcement was released on September 16, 2021 warning of a new trend in which scammers are convincing people to send money with the promise that it will be used for investment or trading cryptocurrencies. From January 1st, 2021 — July 31st, 2021, the FBI received over eighteen hundred complaints related to this type of scam. These complaints resulted in over $133 million in losses.
Below is a partial list of the companies, websites, and creation dates. These sites are still operational and victims are likely in the process of being scammed out of their hard-earned money. The list of sites will be updated daily. We urge any victims who may have been defrauded by this criminal organization to:
LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW AND HELP US PUT AN END TO TO THIS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE!
Cryptocurrency Scam Syndicate Websites
Rhine International Limited
Created January 5, 2022
Soyam Trade Limited
Created December 1, 2021
Seus International Group Limited
Seus International Group Limited
Created October 12, 2021
Jinshi International Limited
Jinshi International Limited
Created September 14, 2021
FK International Group
FK International Group
Created June 29, 2021
Hong Kong Selead Group Limited
Hong Kong Selead Group Limited
Created May 26, 2021
IH Global Markets Limited
Created April 26, 2021
Snok Group Limited
Snok Group Limited
Created April 10, 2021
Sunpor Group Limited
Sunpor Group Limited
Created April 10, 2021
Sunanc International Limited
Sunanc International Limited
Created September 5, 2020
Werder Group Limited
Werder Group Limited
Created October 19, 2020
Cinda Securities Limited
Cinda Securities Limited
Created September 5, 2020
[THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY]
Hi there,
I just want to send you a huge THANK YOU to Mac Venucci’s story about Rhine International Limited being involved in this massive scam: https://foxchronicle.com/cryptocurrency-scam-syndicate/
For the last 2 week I’ve been chatting with someone claiming to be a South Korean born half-white/half-Korean divorced 32 year old woman living in Los Angeles; looks like a former fashion model, owns her own business, texts me a bunch, eventually told me to switch to Telegram, always says good morning, yet never lets me video chat or call (I did once! For 5 minutes), and the “selfies” she sends all seem a little off, as though they were taken years apart from each other and many obviously taken on the same day.
I suspected something was off from pretty much the beginning, even joked about her with a buddy how I want to see how she asks me for money, and so decided to play along. Plus not to mention “So you’re telling me there’s a chance” syndrome kicked in and I gave her a chance, but I was certainly waiting for the moment she would ask me for money. It’s always about money. I worked in the antivirus/security community for 7 years, money is the motivation.
The way she did it was slowly discuss investing over several days and when she realized I already like investing, she then had a call with her “aunt” to see if I can join their highly successful investing group or whatever. She recommended I install Meta Trader 5. I did on my Mac, she asked for a screenshot and when I sent it she said “no we only use the mobile app,” so I switched to that.
Then she wanted to teach me how to set up a demo account, and she went into cold robot mode walking through the steps with a script. I had to connect to the Rhine International Limited broker, and she walked me through the steps to set up a demo account. I’m used to Etrade, Coinbase, and legit trading platforms. MT5 looks like a scam. It feels like a scam. But its site looked legit! That’s what lead to me search about Rhine International Limited, which led me to your article. Literally the only article anywhere online warning anyone about this broker.
THANK YOU!!
She actually sounded very convincing. I let a lot of red flags slip through the cracks because she always seemed to have a good cover story. She was mysterious yet very attentive. She is extremely skilled at what she does – the most manipulative evil person I’ve ever encountered.
The next day, today actually, this morning, I asked her for an office selfie and she sent a stock photo of random people. 🤣😂 I think she knows I caught her, but she is too narcissistic to care or perhaps she is oblivious, so called her out on it (tactfully).
But if it helps to you for your readers, she is following the romance scam script perfectly. This stuff is still happening, but their script has been modified slightly and they use different apps. My scammer moved me from her Android burner phone over to Telegram, where she would send me selfies with her holding an iPhone, and she told me about how she has an aunt who is an expert in finance and worked at JP Morgan and her aunt told me I should use MT5 (only the mobile version!), and to connect my account to Rhine International Limited-demo so she could teach me how to use the app.
Also, something that might help your readers as an update would be to provide links to the following two Reddit posts, which include hundreds of horror stories all following the same exact romance scam script. “Pig butchering scam” I think they call it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/njimju/pigbutchering_scam_sha_zhu_pan_photos_of_training/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/na8oax/asian_guygirl_from_online_dating_mentors_you_to/
So anyway it seems like Koreans are now using China’s script!
Happy to share more details if you would like. She hasn’t blocked me yet and I’m trying to figure out how I can potentially gather more information about her to report. She didn’t succeed getting my money, but I have no doubt she has scammed many others and is probably in the midst of trying to scam dozens of people alongside me.
– Derek
I’ve been scammed as well and I lost over $10000 on my MT5 account. I’m using Rhine International Limited.
Good Evening,
I almost got scammed into believing Rhine was legit but the woman
>>> Susan who told me about it was getting defensive about me asking my
>>> friend about Rhine. We talked on WhatsApp & she gave me a WhatsApp
>>> number for Rhine. If you need more information my name is —— &
>>> this is my email ————–. You can email me anytime. Thank you.
Hello
I read one of your stories about a crypto scam.
My name is Austin. I and 3 of my friends are victims of a crypto scam and we will like highlight our stories.
Please get back to me to commence the process.
Please help me! Been scammed of $80,000 USD
Around May the 5th, 2022, I began a WhatsApp conversation with Vanessa, who claimed to be from Taiwan but lives in Beverly Hills, CA.
She introduced me to a crypto mining/trading platform known as Startlink with the website http://www.slinksp.vip and encouraged me to put in some cryptocurrency and expect enormous gains. I began with around $100 USDT and, after two 30s trading’s, ended up with over $214 USDT. She then encouraged me to transfer crypto from my other exchanges, cautioning that there was no guarantee that they would go back up. I did and ended up transferring about $15000 USDT from 3 crypto accounts. She then introduced me to a feature on the exchange where I could lock my funds for a fixed period and make daily interest. I began with $6000 USDT for 2 weeks and then another $6000 USDT for another 2 weeks. Vanessa then encouraged me to grow my holdings to 70000 USDT by getting a loan of 50000USDT. With a second contract trading and daily interest, I could grow my holdings to 70000 USDT. She then encouraged me to lock 50000USDT in a savings account for 9 weeks with the prospects of growing the funds by 40% after 9 weeks.
After this, I had $20000 USDT available for trading, which she helped me increase to $25000 USDT with the second contract trading.
Finally, she introduced me to an opportunity to buy new crypto at a pre-market price but was advised that I would need $50000 USDT. So, I borrowed an additional 15000 USDT and $5000 from my savings to make $20000. All of which I transferred to Starlink. At this point, I had $45000 USDT with $5000 USDT short. Vanessa advised that we could trade this to get to $50000 USDT before the June 8 deadline to buy the new crypto. It was at this point that I started sensing that I may not be able to withdraw my money immediately. I then tried to withdraw the entire $45000 USDT but was refused. I contacted customer service, but they said they were a security feature that their system detected but should try again. I decided to try a smaller amount of about $15515 USDT but got a message from customer service that I would need to deposit 50000USDT to prove that I was not involved in money laundering.
Since I could not provide the 50,000 USDT requirement, I have been locked out of my account. Please hello me! Thanking you in advance.
Sincerely,
Cyber – FOREX scam article
Can you provide me contact information about where I should share information about a Crypto-FOREX scam that is trying to hook someone? Specifically, Rhine International Limited.
Thank you SO MUCH for writing this article! There is no telling how much money and heartbreak you may have saved me! It all went down as you described and seems to be (in this instance) Rhine International Limited. Who should I share the info with?
Thank you!
Hello Mac,
I hope you will put this in the news. I have been scammed by some group and am talking to CNC Intelligence about recovery. However, what I’m writing to you about today is Voyager Ltd.
I have an account with them and assets. On May 12, 2022, I made a deposit from my checking account and on May 14, 2022, I couldn’t login to my account. My 2FA had been compromised. I sent voyager’s helpdesk several emails over the next two weeks with proof I had an account via a list of deposits made to Voyager from Chase. They ignored my emails and offered no solution. They are a public company… You would think they would want to know the truth about who the owner of the account was but, NO, they just kept responding with, “if you have anything to add to this complaint, let us know”. I kept adding, and finally they sent me a message stating they had deactivated my account. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
I can’t get anyone to help me with this and you can talk to anyone at the company.
I was contacted by Robert Warner, May 14th, who said he was the floor manager at Voyager, 806.391.4507. Turns out, Voyager doesn’t have telephone support. However, they problem had already started because I couldn’t login.
I need help to get someone from Voyager to call me. Last balance I had was $6000 in crypto and -8000 loss. Most of my assets are Shiba, but it could be worth something one day. I am extremely angry that any Public Company can treat their customers like this and just steal their money and close their account. I have filed a complaint with the AG in New Jersey.
Please publish this story. I will provide you any documents to substantiate my claim.
Thank you
Mac,
I read your article regarding a crypto and forex scam syndicate: https://foxchronicle.com/cryptocurrency-scam-syndicate/
I had personally been contacted by a Chinese woman called Candace from LinkedIn (and her profile was somehow removed by LinkedIn later), who also owns a few restaurants which I had my friend check out (and they’re real).
She suggested Rhine International using MetaTrader 5. I did put in some money, and the trades they identified were very much accurate. I’ve attached a few buy and sell points from the trades, and it’s hard to believe the numbers can be manufactured (in other words, this woman did have some sort of accurate info either through computer algorithms or large currency buyers/sellers to identify the buy-sell points).
my question if Rhine International is a scam, how can the buy and sell timing be so accurate (and profits are made from them)? And do you think Rhine International is a scam itself (so basically, it was set up just to scam), or is it being used by criminals?
Best Regards,
WE WERE SCAMMED
Can you help us? We saw an article you wrote. Is CNC Investigations a legitimate company? We are trying to decide whether to pay them to investigate the scam we were victims of. During your investigative reporting, did CNC Investigation seem legitimate?
I am being solicited to open a Forex account through Seus International as I write this. The means of this solicitation are exactly described in your article. Is this helpful to you?
I have been the victim of this fraud by a Chinese lady. My loss is 31k. I am 70 years old, and this has created quite a hardship. I was approached by her on Facebook
She came on to me through my painting on my Facebook profile page. XXX XXXX, XXXXX, XXXXXXX. Flattery will get you everywhere with me when it comes to my paintings.
So, I was swindled. She showed me her Coinbase wallet of millions of USDT and eth. I have photos, supposedly of the lady, and many messages from her. Her email, Facebook profile, and phone number. Would like her brought to justice and my money returned.
A day or so later, I was approached through Facebook again by a Russian lady from Perth, Australia, who wanted to get me started with her node. Rhineland international and Mt5 was her directives as she went through signing me up. She would not talk about anything else but getting me locked into her node. She used the same tactics as the Chinese lady had used.
Fortunately for me, I had done some. Research that night and came across your article on the Rhineland international scam. I have her name, salon business in Perth, several photos of her, her Facebook profile page and a video of her driving her car and another of her business partner and her at a party.
She showed me her Coinbase wallet, a 29-year-old with millions of USDT
I know this is how she made this fortune. That day, she told me she had legitimately made 280k with crypto. But? I have remained on friendly terms with her because I would like to see her brought to justice. We talk daily, and she trying to get me totally into her Coinbase node. That’s all she talks about, just like the Chinese lady that swindled me
My phone number is xxx-xxx-XXXX. My email is x[email protected]. if I can be of any assistance, please let me know. I have photos and videos and personal contact information on these ladies.
To whom it may concern,
I was contacted via Facebook with a friend request from a woman who supposedly lived in Seattle pre-Covid. And was now in Shanghai.
I was not defrauded. She was working with me to do so.
However, she did share photos of herself and her friend that may be of help for investigators or Interpol identification.
She encouraged me to consider a Forex trading platform like what was outlined in your article and claimed she had a special relationship with an aunt who was employed as a high-level banking expert who knew when currencies would fluctuate and could share that with me.
Your article outlines precisely the approach that was attempted by me. If you need to contact me, please feel free to do so.
I would be glad to help.
I AM BEING SCAMMED
I was contacted over social media, then asked to switch communications to WhatsApp for privacy. I was told by a 36-year-old Asian woman that her father was part of a Group that studies International Currency trends (formerly on Wall Street) and can identify significant market fluctuations resulting in Profits in the 30% range. She invited me to open a demo account at FK international group (not sure if FK International is legitimate or not) FK Customer service instructions are handled over WhatsApp as well.
She said I should open a Live account through the same broker as the Demo account. I foolishly sent 20,000 through FK International group, sitting in a Live Trade account (minus a small transfer fee of $112).
I have recently requested FK International to transfer my funds back to my Coinbase and into my control, but the funds are in processing and are estimated to take 3 to 5 business days to process. I did not raise any alarms (simply requested a funds transfer.) I believe they are trying to bait me for a much larger deposit and hope they will honor my transfer in anticipation of a bigger score in the future. They have spent significant time trying to earn my trust with the lure of big profits.
They do “not” have any direct access to my bank accounts, but the seed money of $20,000 is at risk until it arrives (if it arrives) back into my Private Coinbase account.
I would appreciate any help or instruction you can offer, given the current status of my situation.
Please advise.
ENQUIRY
HI there I was scammed please help
I GOT SCAMMED
Hi, I just wanted to let you know that i have just been scammed by SEUS / FOREX group. I lost about $170,000 from this scam. Is there a way to report this to the FBI?
My name is XXXXX XXXXX. I hope to hear from you
SCAM
I am looking for more information about the forex scam involving Rhine International Limited.
I am currently talking with a Chinese woman Lihua Chen, about investing in foreign exchange.
Thank you
Hi Mac,
I read your article about crypto and forex scams. I am especially interested in the forex scam involving Rhine international limited.
Is this a scam? Is there anything else you can tell me about this?
Thank you,
First of all, thank you, I definitely have been defrauded by this organization, I just came to the total realization of this fact today
FOREX Solicitation
I am being solicited to open a Forex account through Seus International as I write this. The means of this solicitation are precisely described in your article. Is this helpful to you?
Do you want to play along with me and fund a Forex account? I am being pressured to fund asap, so we can execute a trade either Thursday or Friday
FYI..They have a new group they started: Breda Group Limited. Don’t get fooled!
I am a victim with a very similar story to some that I’ve read. I’m almost 60 and a disabled combat veteran. This is definitely not right. They seem to have all figured out to make it seem legit.
have had exactly the same experience as mentioned above. After 2 weeks of friendly chatting, this Hong Kong girl sent me a link to Rhine International Limited, and asked me to download the MT5 Apps. She kept chasing me to investigate in it. Likely, I saw this post. Hope more people will see this.