Trading Scam
“Perfidious method”: Tinder scammers get around 20 million euros in Bavaria alone
A finger operates a smartphone on which, among other things, the Tinder app is installed. photo
© Marijan Murat/dpa
Anyone looking for love on the Internet can quickly become the focus of criminals. Investigators and experts speak of a “perfidious method” that can be expensive for the victim.
In Bavaria, fraudsters have stolen tens of millions of euros in dating sites and social networks. “The total damage reported so far to the Central Office for Cybercrime Bavaria (ZCB) alone amounts to around 20 million euros,” Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU) told the German Press Agency in Munich. The fraudsters would get the money with “perfidious methods”.
Investigators call the fraud method, which has been spreading rapidly on the Internet for some time, “tinder trading scams”. Fraudsters try to contact potential victims via partner search portals such as Tinder or via social networks such as LinkedIn. They then try to build up closeness and trust with flirt messages in order to then convince the victims to invest in cryptocurrencies. According to the Ministry of Justice, the perpetrators speak contemptuously of “pig butchering”.
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High number of unreported cases because of shame
Many victims did not dare to go to the police after the crimes, out of shame. Therefore, the damage caused is likely to be significantly higher. Even if the scam is named after the Tinder portal, it also takes place on many other sites.
On Wednesday, Eisenreich and Bamberg’s chief public prosecutor, Thomas Goger, want to warn of the fraud at a press conference in the Palace of Justice in Munich. The big scam sometimes begins with a seductive match on Tinder, said the Ministry of Justice in Munich. In the end everything is gone – the money and the love.