![]() “ were promoting pump and dumps, and this appeared to be a very large and well organized Ponzi Scheme.” ![]() “I am without doubt that Whiplash347, Emily, and QSI are scam artists,” a former admin of the QSI chats called Rocky Morningside told Logically. The leader of the Quantum Stellar Initiative (QSI) channel is known as PatriotQakes but also goes by her real name, Emily Tang. The Whiplash347 channel is operated by an anonymous account, but has managed to amass 270,000 followers on Telegram by sharing a mixture of conspiracies linked to QAnon and the promise of a global financial reset. “The leaders, WhipLash347 and PatriotQakes, capitalized on distrust in both financial institutions and mainstream media to lend credence to the assets they promoted, and bombarded their tens of thousands of followers with misinformation about crypto ventures.” “Combining conspiracizing with bad investment advice, the WhipLash347 and Quantum Stellar Initiative Telegram channels coordinated to produce a weekly curated list of cryptocurrency assets, claiming that they had access to secret military intelligence and knew which assets were going to succeed,” the report states. While Tom’s death by suicide is an extreme example of the consequences of these scams, a new report from Logically, an organization that combats online misinformation, reveals how these two Telegram channels have fleeced thousands of people. The Telegram channels that were responsible for creating and promoting the cryptocurrency tokens Tom invested in did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment. He ultimately drove himself so far into debt, that eventually he killed himself,” James said. Destroyed his business and lost everyone. “My brother destroyed his life over this shit. James believes that, though it was not the only factor in Tom dying by suicide, the loss of so much money in this cryptocurrency scam, and the subsequent loss of his business tipped his brother over the edge. He walked straight home and took his own life.” So no one was there for him and no one knew he was outta jail. “Then on top of that, they let him outta jail two days early and didn’t notify us. “He had guns registered to him and no one went to remove them from his possession,” James said. That never happened, and he later died by suicide. Tom was quickly arrested.īut while his family scrambled to get him some help, he was released from prison without any warning–on the condition that any guns he owned were taken away from him. When the police arrived, Tom told an officer that the officer’s house would be next. The next night, he poured gas on his truck in front of his house and set it on fire. Things came to a head for Tom in March of this year, when, according to his brother, one evening he climbed on top of his house, yelling and screaming, telling his neighbors he was going to kill them. He also became increasingly extreme in his beliefs, going beyond QAnon conspiracy theories to espouse flat earth conspiracy theories, and speaking about the David Icke-inspired conspiracy theory that the earth is secretly run by a race of lizard people. In the end, Tom invested over $100,000 in these scams, ruining his business in the process. It is just a cash grab, which has a major following and is exploiting the misinformed who don’t understand what’s going on,” James said. ![]() They were linked to the tokens themselves, raking in millions of dollars from investors like Tom. Tom was actively following two major Telegram accounts, known as Whiplash347 and PatriotQakes, which were promoting dozens of tokens linked to the Stellar blockchain, the world’s third most popular crypto network behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.īut what Tom didn’t know was that these influencers weren’t simply providing neutral investment advice, as they claimed. Soon, that same community was providing him with cryptocurrency investment advice. ![]() “I have always played it pretty safe, I never really overspent on crypto in any way that would compromise my family’s financial stability,” he said.īut Tom’s research led him in a different direction, and like many stuck at home and isolated due to the pandemic, he was sucked into the QAnon conspiracy theory community. So, after a few months of research, James invested some money in XRP, a cryptocurrency linked to the Ripple network, and a couple of other cryptocurrency tokens. He was determined not to miss out on another golden opportunity. Back in 2014, James had nearly invested $100,000 in Bitcoin (an investment that would be worth over $6 million today) but he put the money towards a house for his family instead, he told VICE News.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |