A crypto trader known LÈON who canvassed for investors with whose BTC he promised to trade has abruptly shut down all his communications. LÈON had promised huge rates of return in a pattern that has been seen time and time again in the crypto space, where novice Bitcoiners are tricked into handing over their funds in the belief of huge returns, only for the individual to steal their money and disappear.
LÈON Parts with Sick Joke
Some scammers make a hasty exit and are never heard of again, but others, like LÈON, can’t resist a joke at the expense of their victims. After spending some time bigging up a Christmas promotion in which he asked for more BTC, the supposed payout time came and went with not one Sat being paid out to investors.
Shortly afterwards, with investors clamouring for answers, LÈON shut down all Telegram communications with investors and changed his Twitter account to the following:
The joke references the ending of the film LÈON, suggesting that the exit scam was planned all along, with the bio translating as “that’s life, my friend”.
LÈON’s method involved getting investors to ‘lock up’ their BTC with him, which as any hack victims know, is always the first red flag – once the money is no longer in your control, it’s time to consider getting out. He then produced amazing profits week after week, although with investors unable to actually take the money out until the stated lockup time, they began asking for proof of the gains.
ATTENTION@hitsXBT, formerly known as LÈON, has exit scammed his Bitmex $BTC fund.
He had promised to send out his fund’s “Xmas promo” profits by 15:30 UTC today.
No profits were sent. He has deleted all his TG secret chats and changed his account to this as a parting joke. pic.twitter.com/478I8dmPxQ
— stealthbomber10 (@stealthbomber21) December 22, 2019
History Repeating
According to Twitter user stealthbomber10, LÈON began “lashing out” at those who questioned the legitimacy of his gains, privatizing his account as a result – another bad sign. It is highly likely that many, if not all, of these moves were planned in advance, as they come straight from the scammer’s playbook, compared to others, such as Jeremy Spence (CoinSignals) and Ayan Dasgupta, who made huge losses and tried to cover them up, with similar results.
Unfortunately, while there are still naïve people coming into the space, such incidents will continue to occur.
