Australia’s ‘barefoot tycoon’ takes on crypto fraudsters who are stealing his image

Scott Pape, an Australian financial educator known as the “Barefoot Investor,” has revealed how he took on crypto fraudsters to scam his followers who stole his identity.

The Australian reported on December 23 that Pape said he and his team had been reporting hundreds of fake Facebook groups impersonating him to trick people into participating in scams.

Instead of waiting for Facebook to remove the groups – who can see that the scams have temporarily increased – Pape decided to engage with the scammers and show them in detail what they do.

Pape started by engaging with scammers on Facebook under a fake name and asking for investment help.

After coming across a fake Facebook page, he was asked to provide his phone number and invited to an “exclusive” WhatsApp group called “DB Wealth Institute”.

Pape said he did a quick Google search on DB Wealth Institute and found a series of automated press releases about the “investment firm,” some dedicated to Yahoo Finance, Forbes and LinkedIn.

“DB Wealth Institute, founded in 2011 by Professor Cillian Miller, provides practical financial training and has developed ‘AI Financial Navigator 4.0', integrating AI with big data to enhance marketing strategies. In the year By 2024, he had trained more than 30,000 students from more than ten countries,” one of the press releases read.

Pape said further research revealed that many US regulators and financial regulators have warned of promising crypto trading lessons from “wealth institutions” via WhatsApp.

In such scams, the “Professor's” assistant, when dealing with investors, provides fake trading signals for the group members to pile up their money. Once enough money is collected, the group disappears with them all, takes a new name and targets new victims.

Pape said his phone notifications quickly started getting him off the hook, with more than 200 messages in the WhatsApp group every day from different users posting their various successes in crypto trading.

“Every day at 11 o'clock, the professor gave out trademarks. People were encouraged to post screenshots of their winning WhatsApp groups, which they had been doing all day and all night. I suspected they were bots,” Pape said.

Pape said he was advised by an assistant named “Ally” to take a 100X long trade on the altcoin using “trading signals” from his professor. He did and made 81% profit in 10 minutes.

“There are three steps that set up these scams: The first step is confidence. The second step is greed. And the last – and most profitable for the scammers – is fear.”

After making some money, Pape says the scammers quickly “come in for the kill,” as his assistant Ali sent him hundreds of messages asking him how much to invest and advising him to take out a loan to join one of his special investments. Programs.

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“A few days later, the professor announced their ‘affiliate programs' based on how much you were willing to invest. It started at $20,000 and went up to $5 million,” he wrote.

But this is where Pape pulled the plug, saying what he's learned from experience — helping other victims of scams in the past — is exactly how scams like this work.

“Once you realize you've been robbed, scammers will complain about your desperation, often convincing you to borrow money to ‘pay back' your losses,” he said.

“It's a little-known fact that your biggest loss is after you realize you've been scammed.”

Pape is the best-selling author of the Australian-focused investment and finance book Barefoot Investor, which has since become his online moniker.

Crypto scams, exploits and hacks are on the rise in 2024, according to a recent report from blockchain intelligence firm Chinalysis, $2.2 billion will be lost to fraud and hacking in 2024, up 21% from $1.8 billion in 2023.

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