NI Entrepreneur James Blake Victim of `Bitcoin Identity Fraud’

A North Irish businessman says he has become a victim of online scams that stole his identity as part of a bitcoin scam.

James Blake’s life was turned into hell by Chinese criminals who stole his details to create hundreds of fake online profiles that were used to deceive people by scamming thousands of pounds of Bitcoin.

The 28-year-old, whose company operates in Belfast and Liverpool, says profiles are on all social media sites, including Tinder, Instagram, Facebook, Quora, and even dating sites he’s never heard of.

The victim’s fake WhatsApp profile sent a fake passport photo containing James’ personal information.

But only Tinder was able to smooth out the flaw – all the other sites refused to do anything. He even called PSNI, who said he was unable to help him.

And in a shocking Instagram exchange, the former “adviser” to criminals, whose job was to create fake profiles, warned: “Please don’t spread this information. I’m going to get killed.”

James, who started his first online business when he was finishing his A-level studies at Fort Hill Integrated College in Lisburn, said, “I did my best to fix it from the start, but I had no options. It came to the point now that I just gave up because I I can’t prevent it in any way.

“I still know that about 30,000,000 were taken by different people because in the last year I received a lot of letters from many women. There was also a boy. Some of them came to me and asked if they could get receipts with the money they invested!

“I get about two messages a day from people saying they are talking on a dating app or via WhatsApp, which of course they are not!

“It’s totally unforgiving, but the social media companies aren’t eliminating them – they say they don’t go against their community’s guidelines, which is crazy.”

Some fake profiles use variations of their name, with additional underscores or numbers at the end. Others range from adapting his real identity, such as “James Blackstone” to completely fictitious names, including “Donald West”, “Tom Leo”, “George Lucas”, “Phil Wilson”, “Vladimir Timofey” and “Remy Brown” . . One of the fakers even dared to say that James’s account is fake.

There are also fake ads using his company name and photos designed to lure unsuspecting victims out of their money.

James said he first heard about the fake profiles about 18 months ago after posting a picture of his new “flashing” car on social media. She said, “At first I thought it was funny and joked about it with my office mates.

But when my business was more successful and successful than I was, it was growing and growing and growing. I now know that anything I post online will be immediately used in one of these accounts.

“At the same time, a lot of my income comes from my online presence, so I am 22 years old. If I remove myself from the Internet, it just disappears, then let someone pick it up and all of a sudden their profile becomes relevant. It’s really horrible.”

It got even scarier when James received a letter from a “consultant” claiming he quit his job for the sake of the people who created his fake profiles. The message reads: “They let me use your photo…and created a specific persona to meet a girl who is full of dating apps and has a serious relationship to build trust.

Allow girls to open a Bitcoin account and invest. I hate lying and you will miss it and now I’m leaving. “

In response to a question from James about who is behind the scams, the “consultant” said: “I don’t know their real names, they just use all the fake names. That’s it [a] Big industry, they are Chinese.

Please do not disclose this information. I will kill.”

James added, “If it was just a fake profile on my Tinder and it was, I would deal with it from time to time and it would disappear. But that’s way too much.

Some of these relationships are global, so they are found in Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Sweden and the United States. There are even dating platforms you’ve never heard of. I’ve also seen social media sites in different languages ​​I’m on! That’s when you see its size and it’s very creepy.

“It got even more annoying because one of the fake Whatsapp profiles sent a fake passport photo with all my details to one of the victims to prove that I really am.

“At that moment I got angry and called the police. The police came out and said they couldn’t do anything. Their opinion was that if you went to post it, everything would happen, which I don’t agree with.

“They said these people could be anywhere in the world and we couldn’t get in touch with all the different police departments.

“One of the fake profiles actually posted pictures of my family from my social media and made up stories about my parents. It’s very disgusting, very literally invasive, but the platforms don’t want to do anything about it even if people are losing money.

“I also spoke to my contact within Facebook and he said he couldn’t do anything. He told me to continue the relationship, but when I did, I was told it didn’t go against their instructions.” This is crazy because these people are using my name, my family, my colleagues, my work and calling my name. “

Victims contacted James via his website and real Instagram account, instagram.com/mrjamesblake, and expected him to help them get their money back. She said, “There was a woman in Florida who told me that she was encouraged to invest $15,000 over the months.

“Honestly, there were so many messages from people that I laughed a little and told my girlfriend I couldn’t go. [on] So, it looks like they were expecting me to fix it, but I obviously couldn’t help it. Then some of them got disgusted and said all kinds of things.

“It’s horrible for people to be lied to, but it’s also really bad for me and my business. I’m 28 and I still have a great career ahead of me, so it’s pretty scary to think my name might be vilified.

James wants everyone to know he’s not on Tinder, not looking for love, and not trying to get people to invest in Bitcoin.

He said, “I don’t really tell anyone to invest. I own a marketing company called Vindicta Digital, I have employees who make videos, build websites, and do digital marketing campaigns and that’s my main business. The other business I work in is e-commerce and it’s not a very popular business.”

“So it’s not like I’m in this crypto investment line, so there won’t be anything on the internet about doing that, and if there is, it’s fake.”

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, said: “We are discussing an issue that the Daily Mirror has brought to our attention. We dedicate significant resources to resolving these types of ads and profiles.

“It is important to us that ads and profiles on Facebook and Instagram are useful to people and not used to improve deceptive behaviour, such as using images of public figures to mislead people.

“Our systems improve when people detect this type of behavior by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and selecting ‘About advertising’.

PSNI has been contacted for comment.