On 23 May, Halo’s HUMINT Team identified an additional Barry Silbert Impersonator using Telegram handle @Barry_SilbertDC. ”Silbert” acknowledged DCG affiliation and provided the website essentialhometrade.online with accompanying BTC wallet, guaranteeing profits. The website had numerous indicators of fraud including typos and used a photograph of actor Clive Owen as the founder and CEO. Additionally, the domain had a US phone number (WhatsApp) listed for customer support. A customer service agent provided a second BTC wallet. While the website prompted for Government ID for registration, much of the content contained grammatical errors and appeared fabricated. Both the “Silbert” impersonator and customer service agent spoke English using terms of American slang.

In January of 2021, a California-based woman named Kara Harrington fell victim to a scam impersonating a DCG employee via the popular dating app “Hinge”, involving a total loss of $21,500. The threat actor impersonating as a DCG employee goes by the name Mario Sergio Mandoza. The threat actor claimed to be a San Francisco-based portfolio manager for DCG. During Halo’s investigative efforts into this victim claim, multiple scam emails, phone numbers and crypto currency wallet address used in the scam were identified. Mandoza used email domain dcg.co.bz to impersonate DCG association and forged DCG’s name and logo in contracts and official email correspondence. Halo applied OSINT techniques to characterize the threat and identify additional associates involved in this DCG threat.