Miami man loses $42,000 to catfish scam after ‘beautiful’ woman claimed to be an Estee Lauder exec: ‘When I asked her to prove she was real, she agreed to a video call’

A Miami man lost $42,000 in a catfish crypto scam after a “beautiful” woman claiming to be an Estee Lauder executive told him to invest in the fake scheme.

The man, who did not want to reveal his identity, said News6 who met the Asian woman, who was called Mindy Li, on Instagram in December 2023.

He thought he was investing his money in Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency in existence, and a do-it-yourself platform for decentralized currency.

But instead, the scammer who used the fake online profile was actually fleecing him of his own money, making him a victim of what investigators call “pig butchering.”

The victim even asked Li to make a video call to prove that the crypto scheme was real, to which she agreed. Before this, she had just seen the photos of her on LinkedIn and other social networking sites.

The woman in the video “looked pretty similar, not exactly the same,” the victim admitted, saying he attributed the facial discrepancies to her, likely using social media filters.

The victim added: “I was suspicious because she wasn’t the exact girl, but I ruled it out because of the photo filters.”

According to News 6, the fake images of Mindy Li were linked to more than a dozen profiles around the world, which used different names, such as Kim Hamilton and Ming Jeong.

Initially, the man invested between $500 and $1,000 in Crypto.com. He said that at first the “profits were real.” At one point, Li told him that we would see profits of one percent per day.

Although his bank warned him that it was risky to transfer money, the man saw that he was making a profit and continued handing out thousands.

When she suggested he move his money to another location and account, he did so, but shortly after he lost contact with her and the $42,000 he had disbursed.

Investigators said the man was a victim of pig slaughter, an investment fraud scam in which victims are gradually induced to make increasingly larger contributions in cryptocurrency before the party they are dealing with disappears.

Reflecting on his madness, the victim said: “I guess I lost a lot of money, I’m stupid.”

The man said the website he was told to deposit his cash to looked similar to a video game. He He watched his money go up and then down.

At one point, his $48,000 increased to $55,000, and when he asked to withdraw the money from the account, he was told he would have to pay to do so.

He added: ‘I saw my money go up and down, but it was a trap. My money was already gone.

In 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission reported that losses from romance scams totaled $1.14 billion, with average losses per person of $2,000, in 2023.

The agency reports that romance scams are “the highest reported losses for any form of imposter scam.”