In September, HALO’s HUMINT team identified a “Michael Sonnenshein” impersonator on Telegram with the handle @Michael_Sonnenshein. The impersonator stated he was the “CEO of Grayscale company” and claimed that investments would be “traded out to be a profit of times ten of your capital amount.”

This impersonator provided two bitcoin wallet addresses, both of which displayed a significant amount of previous transaction history. Finally, the impersonator provided details of a bank account linked to TransferWise - a global money transfer company - held under the name Casmir Chike Adigwe.

The Investigator subsequently identified a person with this full name born in 1976, originally from Nigeria. This individual is currently resident in Upplands Väsby, a town outside of Stockholm, and works in a customer service staff role at Woshapp, an eco-friendly car wash company based in Stockholm County, Sweden