- Crypto scammers are becoming more bold in a bid to take your hard earned money
- Pek Universe is using fake profiles, fake directors and every other trick in the book to draw investors in
- Pek Universe is not regulated or licensed in any jurisdiction, making its investment platform highly illegal
Scammers will stop at nothing to steal your hard-earned money and today we’re bringing you a steaming hot pile of scam straight out of crazy town. With no official address, fake directors, minimum deposits and guaranteed returns, the Pek Universe scam is one of the biggest live crypto scams out there at the moment!
Make sure you stay safe and avoid anyone talking about Pek Universe or trying to sell you this “amazing investment opportunity” – it could cost you a buck or two.
The Classic Fake Directors
Pek Universe claims to be an automated trading platform focusing on the energy sector, and if this was a legit platform, it would be a pretty neat investment portfolio. However, that’s where the positives end for Pek Universe.
On the board of directors at Pek Universe sits three proud directors. We’ve got Eric Greg Newman, Collins Futcher and Catherine Cromwell making an appearance for Pek Universe. However, Eric Greg Newman is actually a pilot for Lufthansa and goes by the name of Michael Schuster on the streets. Collins Futcher appears to be a bit of a ghost with no alter ego for the real world. Finally, we come to Catherine Cromwell – a late descendant of Oliver Cromwell, perhaps?
Catherine is actually Andra Liemandt. Andra is an American businesswoman and musician who is the CEO of the Kindness Campaign and Founder of the Mrs Band. Her image was taken from an article she published on LinkedIn 6 months ago.
We reached out to Andra for a comment and to confirm whether or not she gave permission for the image to be used or not, but we still have not heard back at the time of publication.
Fake Documents Incoming
As in all good scams, Pek Universe offers up a fake set of credentials. When asked for a company registration number, the Pek Universe representative known as Bright sent over a screenshot of the details for a different company, known as Forex Birds LTD. However, Forex Birds LTD belongs to a company called Forex Birds LTD and is a fully regulated company with the FSA – unlike Pek Universe.
When we quizzed Bright about FCA and SEC registration numbers, Bright simply replied with “you have no right to ask questions about that information”. As a potential investor doing due diligence, we’re pretty sure we have every right to know that information. After sending this message, we were then banned from the live chat. When accessing the live chat from a different IP address, we were promptly blocked from chat again, again and again…
The Mystery Investment
Whenever you make an investment through a fully regulated platform, you have to pass through KYC and answer a few investor knowledge questions, such as are you aware of the risks. However, when you sign up and go to invest in Pek Universe’s platform, you aren’t required to do any of that at all. Instead, you’re funneled to invest into one of their three packages that have very little information as to what you’re investing in.
There’s the Elite Plan that offers 1.4% daily return for a period of 10 days without breaking the bank, whatever that means. This package starts at a hefty $500 and tops out at $19,999. Then there’s the most popular plan, the Veteran Plan. This boasts daily earnings of 1.6% with an investment of $20,000 to $99,999 for 20 days. Finally, there’s the Retirement Plan that offers 1.9% daily earnings for 30 days with an investment between $100,000 and $1,000,000.
None of these plans offer any type of information as to what you’re investing in or how the investment process works. This is a massive red flag, and one that even the most naïve of investors should be able to pick up on.
Once you go to make a deposit, you’re instructed to select the deposit amount in Bitcoin and you’re given an address to deposit the funds into. In our case, the wallet address we were given was 1Zk2k916n4vXpBW5FtmqzN5mGkhqjpA5t which already has a transaction completed on it – not very professional at all.
In fact, if you follow the funds from this address, you quickly get lost in a maze of obfuscating techniques, with more than 80 Bitcoin moving between thousands of wallets. This is a common technique used by people trying to hide their transactions and throw authorities off their trail.
How Do They Contact You?
As with all good crypto scammers, Pek Universe contacts you via Telegram and their impressive affiliate network. In the early hours of Sunday, an account dubbed Stacie reached out and got in touch with us via Telegram, prompting us to swap to WhatsApp rather quickly.
If someone reaches out to you on Telegram and you have no connections in common, you’d be doing yourself a favor to ignore that conversation pretty quickly. In our experience, a Stacie J Lowery with the referral code Fxgunter reached out, so do be careful as they get a commission from whatever you deposit.
Avoid the Pek Universe Scam at All Costs
Unless you have a weird compulsion and desire to lose all your money, or get taken for a ride by half-baked scammers, then you’re going to want to avoid the Pek Universe scam like the plague.
With no investor protection, no genuine FCA/SEC license and a list of fake directors, Pek Universe is going nowhere but the sin bin. There are no redeeming features for Pek Universe and not one shred of evidence that hints towards Pek Universe possibly being legit.
Pek Universe is a complete scam and you’d do well to avoid it.
