UK Pensioner Scammed £170K in Crypto Romance Scam
A pensioner from Rushcliffe was recently scammed out of £170,000 after falling prey to a sophisticated "crypto romance scam" orchestrated by organized crime gangs in Nigeria.
According to reports, the woman in her 70s was conned after meeting someone online who claimed to be a US Army surgeon. After talking to the scammer for several months, she was convinced he was in love with her and needed money to end his work contract early.
The fraudster suggested that Bitcoin was the only way to transfer the funds, and he promised to pay her back once he had access to his money. The woman believed him and deposited cash into Bitcoin ATMs in Nottingham on several occasions.
When the bank noticed the large transactions, it contacted Nottinghamshire Police, who later confirmed that the woman had been scammed.
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While the pensioner was compensated £110,000 with the help of the Fraud Protect Team, she was left £60,000 out of pocket and emotionally drained after enduring months of stress and anxiety.
This case highlights the importance of being vigilant and cautious when dealing with online transactions and unknown parties.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
