Telegram Investment Scam: 'Golden Trading' Poses Risk to Malaysian Investors

Malaysian investors find unknown groups popping up on their Telegram and so-called investment opportunities offered by the group administrators. What’s knocking on the door? Good fortune? Or trap? The experiences of victims gave the answer.

'Golden Trading' is the most recent investment scam to appear on Telegram. The scammer invites potential victims to a group and puts on a making-big-fortune show with his accomplices.

According to the message record provided by victims, many of the "investors" were praising Golden Trading for bringing good returns for them. In order to make their claims seem more convincing, scammers also posted remittance credentials, pretending they were investing in Golden Trading.

_{Message records provided by victims}

Golden Trading offers investment schemes with deposits ranging from RM500 to RM9,000, and incredibly high returns, up to RM320,000.

_{The fraudulent investment scheme provided by Golden Trading}

To highlight this ‘rare’ investment opportunity, the administrator falsely claimed that Golden Trading accepts clients for a limited time only, which was a trick to pressure investors into transferring money as soon as possible.

On August 15, Sufian decided to participate and transferred RM2,000 to the bank account designated by the admin, in the hope of earning a good return. When he saw the RM90,000 profit in his trading account, he was very happy and wanted to withdraw.

Surprisingly, the scammer asked for a fee of RM3,000, which was not expensive compared to the "profit" he earned. On August 17, the fee was transferred to the designated bank account.

However, his withdrawal request was still ‘pending’ even though the fee had been paid. And the victim was kicked out of the group without receiving any reasonable explanation.

Another victim, Mahmud, had a similar experience when Golden Trading swindled him out of RM11,000 with the same tricks.

 _{Fake screenshots of account balance}

Golden Trading created several groups on Telegram for investment scams, such as Golden Capital FX Malaysia and Golden Trading Investment.

_{Info pages of Golden Trading's groups and the admin}

If you find yourself in a so-called investment group, ignore the "investment opportunity" and delete it quickly, as regulated online trading platforms do not onboard new clients in this way.