Posted on behalf of the victim:
Last August, I was contacted by a Alexander Wilhelm Gerhard, a 51 years old Canadian geologist who said he was in my country. A few days later, he was called urgently to the oil rig in Dubai, where his work was taking place and there the problems began. As the internet on the oil rig was very weak and would not allow him to access neither his email nor his bank page and his mother was in the hospital due to a stroke, he asked me to do the purchase of new pipes (400.000 USD) to the company Kelorex Energy FZE with his bank credentials (username 0050464839, password alex123) through his bank web page (Capital City Bank, www. capcitybn.com/en), which I did, in good faith. This was a fake transfer, in a very good simulated bank web page. The bank even had a toll free phone number that was working. After some time, he asked me again to make a new (fake) transfer, this time to pay his workers. The transfer was refused for suspicious activity (mine, in xxx and his, in Dubai almost at the same time). As a result, the bank put his account on hold by FMI. Since he was not able of receiving mails in the oil rig, he asked me to be the communication written e-mail channel between himself and his bank, transmitting by Whatsapp correspondence from both parts. Communications from and to the bank used the following mails:
capitalcitybank@accountsdpartment.com
and
account@capcitybn.com.
Alex Gerhard’s mail was alexeng1019@gmail.com.
According to the (fake) bank, simply by paying a certain amount of money (which would be replenished) would reactivate the account. In my good faith, again, and with some guilt complex for being involuntarily to blame for the situation, I resolved it and pay from my own money. However, the bank said that Alex Gerhard 2018 taxes hadn't been paid, so in order to release the money, another sum of money would have to be paid. To release the funds it was necessary a document, which would cost another amount of money. I already had the feeling that something was wrong, but paid half of it.
Alex Gerhard's world doesn’t exist. He took the identity of a USA citizen, who lives between UK and USA, Eric Rutherford and put it on a Canadian passport.
In total amount, he asked me for was 150.000 USD. I paid over 80.000 USD.
Today, I still don’t know who my fraudster is or how he is. I will never know how he really looks like, where he really comes from, what he really thinks about life. This is cybercrime, where nothing really exists in real life but the victims and the money. He presented me with an invented identity, a totally credible and consistent life story and an unbelievable nice and spontaneous smile. With a stolen identity, stolen photos of Eric, stolen family, doubled videos, he created his own story without slicks or cracks. And he also created a secondary victim, the person whose identity was stolen to manipulate and steal from others, whose most informal photos were stolen and put into a fake Facebook account used with the only purpose of scamming, a fake Canadian passport, a fake American bank, fake doubled videos, to create a fake live story. Eric was also used to take money out of me and he was also used before and after me by those cybercriminals to carry their despicable activities.
Unlike most victims that keep quiet feeling ashamed and forbid themselves to talk about the situation, I am showing my face to my errors and innocent trust, hoping that this will avoid that some victims more fragile than me fall in the hands of these sociopaths.
Please, make the best use of this information, I worry with the victims. And I also worry I can´t do nothing for them.
I know there are people being victimized at this moment, I am one of them too.
I see them being scammed and the scam evolution in his whatsapp photo, it follows a standard pattern. When I see the photo changes, I feel like in 9/11. I am seeing the tragedy happening but I can't do nothing.
