My father has become involved in a bitcoin scam, unknowingly. He was under the impression that he was investing in a bitcoin /crypto currency account but it now transpires that the people who withdrew his money through his credit card have been running a scam and have swindled him out of nearly RM1,000,000 (Malaysian Ringgit).

It all started when my father opened a bitcoin account in April 2019 and invested some money. Then in August he received phone calls every day from a man named Richard, (who was acting like a Relationship Manager), a woman (posing as an Insurance Agent) and Giovanni (apparently from Anti Money Laundering agency) who asked him to register with US8k to release his invested funds. They called around 3.30pm Malaysia time every day and said he had to register this money before the bank closed or else he won't get his invested money. My father paid US8k for many days, eventually totalling US247,000, as he was told that the money he paid got stuck in the AML account. They took this money through his credit card account. They then bought bitcoins and transferred that out to numerous Gmail accounts that did not belong to my father. My father is nearly 80 years old and is not computer or finance savvy. They convinced him to give them access to his laptop and they took control of everything remotely. My father is not aware of how bitcoins work, so he trusted them to do what was necessary to make the investment and "registration", falling to understand that he was being conned. He kept these transactions from us because he had no idea that he was being duped.

Then last Tuesday 18th November, my father came to ask my brother, to take a photo for the "registration". That's when the whole operation came to his attention and he informed us and we intervened. My brother has recorded some phone conversations and video footage of my father's engagement with the scammers from last week. My father is ashamed and embarrassed to report it but this scam has to be looked into.

We are shocked that the RM at his bank did not question my father withdrawing such huge sums of money through his credit card on a daily basis. How was this allowed to happen? Is there no escalation within the bank of such suspicious activity? This payment activity on his credit card should have been red flagged on day one. The bank should have immediately called my father to enquire and then to explain the nature of the transactions.

We also have the phone number that this Richard used to contact my dad. It is a Dutch mobile phone that still remains active. My dad spoke to the man today and begged him to return his money. Richard then asked him for USD 4k more to return it saying that he would pay the rest of the registration fee of USD 8k.

We are concerned with where these funds have gone and how the money is being used. The people behind this scam may be linked to other illegal activities (terrorism, money laundering) and we don’t want my father to appear complicit in these transactions. He thought he was investing into his own bitcoin account/investment.