In 1963, Agent 007 is seen in the movie From Russian with Love battling a secret crime organization known as SPECTRE. Russians Rosa Klebb and Kronsteen are out to grab a decoding device known as the Lektor, using the beautiful Tatiana to lure James Bond into helping them. Bond willingly travels to meet Tatiana in Istanbul, Turkey where he must rely on his wits to escape with his life in a series of deadly encounters with the enemy.
Sometime fiction is closer to life than we think. James Bond always prevailed and eventually the Soviet Union fell. But the Russian tactics of tricking the US into devious plots still remains prevalent. Enter a wealthy banker from Connecticut who we will call John Smith. This a very true story happened within the last year. Our analysts were as to help uncovering the scam.
Smith, who made millions in banking and finance and is now reaching his golden years, is unfortunately a widower of 8 years. Though surrounded by family, he gets lonely. Smith thinks, “ah, the Internet is a wonderful thing.” Smith meet Tatiana in an on-line chat session and a romance begins. Tatiana spins a tale of getting to the United States from the Ukraine, but must pay off sever debts and needs travel money. Smith, who has now fallen head over heels for Tatiana agrees to send a million US dollars to her. She even arranges for Smith to give cash US dollars to a courier to place the money in a US bank account and then converted to e-commerce via Bitcoin. All seemed legitimate to Smith as the use of cash was explained away as avoiding any US taxes and immigration concerns. Tatiana wants to get to the US as fast as possible and Smith was in love. All is progressing along until another request is made of Smith, this time a request to invest some of his money into the Ukrainian oil pipeline, which now appears to be operable in the foreseeable future. The investment looked like a safe money maker. Another courier came to Smith’s house and another million+ in cash was passed along for this great investment.
Smith was provided a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet to be used to send the “coins” to Tatiana. Or so he thought.
BTW - True story, names and some indicators changed to protect individuals.
Link to full report: TR-21-294-001_RussianScams.pdf
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