It’s Finished For This Finnish Bitcoin Scam

It is rare that Finland and Bitcoin scams are mentioned in the same sentence, according to reports from today though, this certainly seems to be the case, in an event that has seen a famous Thai actor by the name of Jiratpisit Jaravijit, scam 22-year-old Aarni Otava Saarimaa out of a large amount of Bitcoin. It seems even celebrity endorsement isn’t enough to keep some off the scam rails. Image sourced from - Bangkok Post According to the reports, Jaravijit, better known as ‘Boom’ encouraged Saarimaa to send various amounts of Bitcoin to a number of addresses that were allegedly going to be used to invest in a new project by the name of ‘Dragon Coin’. Saarimaa was led under the impression that his payments would be used to make an investment into Dragon Coin, which of course would be given back once the project was launched. In essence, this was an ICO scam of sorts, one that has seen Saarimaa conned out of an investment, totalling around 5,500BTC. This see’s Saarimaa’s investment equate to around $34 million. We should note at this point, the actual Dragon Coin project has nothing to do with Boom, or this scam. It seems that Dragon Coin was simply used as a distraction, to allow boom to convince Saarimaa that his investment was going into a legitimate cause. According to Coindoo: “As part of the scam scheme, Jiratpisit “Boom” Jaravijit was arrested and then released on bail on condition that he would pay a fine of 2 million baht and not leave the country. It is supposed that besides the actor has also been involved five or six scammers who are to be arrested if found, including the 35-year-old actor’s brother and sister aged 32. It looks like the money was re-invested in businesses based in Bangkok, Nonthaburi, and Chon Buri.” See more for yourself, here. This is a scam of terrifying proportions. The deviance involved here is vast, not only is Boom going to serve a hefty sentence because of this, his career is certainly over. As for Saarimaa, a life lesson has no doubt been learned here. For everyone else, this is another example of how risky cryptocurrency can be. Not only should you trade safe, you should hodl safe too. Don’t transfer money to people without doing extensive research and moreover, just because something seems legitimate, it doesn’t mean it is.