TPKcoin – WhatsApp Chat (Fraudulent Platform)

A California resident reports joining a group via the Telegram app where they would learn about crypto asset trading from Mason, supposedly a partner at a well-known financial company. Following instructions provided by the group, the victim opened an account with a supposed crypto asset trading platform, tpkcoin ( also known as directcurrent) and funds. After this, the resident participated in a trading program called “big data trading” where they would receive trading signals from the leaders of the telegram group over the span of five days. But when the trading event ended the trading platform told the victim they owed $29,000 in commissions. The victim tried to withdraw the money from the trading platform to pay the commissions but was told they needed to pay $48,000 in taxes first. When the victim said they did not have the money to pay the taxes, an assistant with the platform advised them to download a cold wallet to withdraw funds in small transactions in order to avoid paying the taxes. The victim said they wanted to seek further advice before following those instructions. After that, they were blocked from the trading platform and could no longer access their account. The website for the platform is no longer operational. All told, the victim has not been able to recover their $4,200.