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Recently, many chat apps are used for language study or socializing purposes.

However, more and more people are taking damage from investing in cryptocurrency with the introduction of foreigners who met in this chat app.

Fraud using cryptocurrency is difficult to track, so the victims are cheating.



Reporter Jeong Ban-seok reports. 



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Mr. A, a woman in her 30s, frequently communicated with Jack, a Malaysian man, whom she met in the Foreign Friends Making App in August.



[Mr. A / Fraud Victim: I approached like a boyfriend, and I spoke very romantically.

I just sent myself a selfie.]



After a while, I signed up for a foreign exchange arbitrage trading site at the invitation of Jack

.

I put in 1 million won and then I saw that it doubled and I invested more than 30 million won.



[Mr. A / Fraud Victim: This works, this is real.

Since then, I believe I have invested in all the money I have.]



However, I lost 60 million won more when I was notified that I was not able to exchange money and was tied to an account with suspicious international money laundering.



Jack disconnected after confessing that he had been involved in the scam.




I immediately reported it to the police, but the investigation has been in place for the second month.



[Mr. A / Fraud Victim: First of all, I was angry about why I was cheated.

You talked the way you were wrong.

He said, "If you have 10 billion, send money like that" and "If you can catch it easily, I've already caught it."]



B, a man in his 30s, invested in a cryptocurrency exchange with the recommendation of a Hong Kong woman who met in the same app, but suddenly the exchange was closed and 150 million I flew 10 million won.




[Mr. B / Fraud Victim: Because it was an exchange that trades general coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, there is no doubt...

The police said it was difficult to track, so I asked a private platform to track cryptocurrency.]



Of the 179 cryptocurrency-related crimes filed with blockchain security company Uppsala Security, about 40% of these chat apps are fraudulent.



[Park Jeong-seop/Uppsala Security Researcher: Seeing the money plugged in directly, the victims have no choice but to be deceived, and fraudulently make the website look like it is actually operating...

]



There seems to be a need for active police investigations into cross-border cyber fraud.



(Video coverage: Kim Yong-woo, Video editing: Kim Jong-woo)