Hundreds of people invested in virtual currency Helcoin and lost all their money after the website was shut down

According to China Radio International's " News Panorama" report, recently , many listeners reported to China Radio International that they were involved in a virtual currency scam called "Hell Coin". According to incomplete statistics, more than 7 million yuan invested by more than 500 people across the country has almost all gone down the drain.

It is understood that Hull Coin is a virtual digital currency announced by the British municipality of Hull in 2014. How did the British Hull Coin appear in the Chinese market? Through online searches, it was found that there were hundreds of web pages vigorously promoting the so-called "Hul Coin entered the Chinese market, bringing great opportunities to investors" related reports. Many investors also told reporters that last year, major media websites, even authoritative media, published related reports, as well as videos and website introductions, so they believed in this financial product and invested heavily, but ended up losing everything. What kind of scam did these investors encounter?

Last October , Ms. Li from Hubei learned about the virtual currency investment project called "Heer Coin" through a friend. From the first time she joined to the final "lockdown", she invested more than 60,000 yuan in total. Ms. Li said, "Where did the profit come from when the (company) network was shut down? It was all in the website, and it was shut down before I could take it out."

The company website mentioned by Ms. Li is the website of Hullcoin China, which is also the online platform for investors to purchase and circulate Hullcoin and conduct financial transactions. It is understood that Hullcoin is a virtual currency issued by the city of Hull, a municipality in the UK. Some foreign media reports call it "local digital currency" or "cryptocurrency". In November last year , investors including Ms. Li learned about the issuance and promotion of this virtual currency in the Chinese market through various channels.

"Let's take a look at the new favorite virtual currency in the Internet financial industry - the British Hull Coin. The Hull Coin is a virtual currency issued by the British government and has advantages that other virtual currencies cannot match. It combines innovation..." This video titled "The first investment and financing conference of the British Hull Coin China in 2015 was held in Changsha" is based on a well-known domestic TV news column, and there are many such reports. According to professional analysis, the videos of these news reports were all completed by means of splicing, post-synthesis and other fraudulent means, and many photos promoting the launch of the Hull Coin in China were also computer PS synthesis. The reporter came to Changsha, where the so-called "Hull Coin Investment and Financing Conference National Investment Promotion Conference" was held, and it was confirmed that the launch conference was completely fictitious. It was because Mr. Zhao read a lot of media reports that they chose to believe in Hull Coin and invested more than 400,000 yuan, and also brought in their relatives and friends.

Mr. Zhao said, "When we bought Hur Coin, the key was to check Baidu Encyclopedia. We always felt that Baidu Encyclopedia was of great reference value. In addition, Sohu, Sina, and Phoenix all had news about Hur Coin, and there may still be news about Hur Coin now. So we felt that since such a large website reported it, it could not be fake."

However, the reporter found that the reports on these websites were all reprints, without any authoritative source, and some of them could no longer be opened or were offline. The website of the Helcoin China region did not have any record, and the office location provided by it in Hong Kong did not exist at all. After December last year , the so-called Helcoin China region website could not be logged in, and the investors' money disappeared. Many investors "woke up" and thought they had been scammed. Ms. Li, who had just woken up from a dream, told the reporter that the appreciation potential of Helcoin attracted her at the beginning, but she did not know how Helcoin worked. She just followed her friends and transferred all the money to the account of the "leader" above.

A statistical list obtained by a reporter shows that investors of Helcoin come from all over the country, and the investment amount ranges from 1,000 yuan to hundreds of thousands. According to incomplete statistics, as of now, there are more than 500 investors nationwide with 7.1 million yuan of funds, which have disappeared like the Helcoin China website. The cruel facts are increasingly clear in front of Helcoin investors - the British Helcoin has never been officially promoted in China. Whether it is the Helcoin China website or the overwhelming publicity reports, they are just tools in this scam. Some investors have formed a so-called "rights protection committee" to publish information on major websites to expose the true face of Helcoin. Many investors chose to call the police. Officer Zhu of the Changsha Chengnan District Police Station revealed that according to the principle of territorial division, they have accepted the reports of investors who made remittances in Changsha and have handed over the relevant evidence to their superiors. Officer Zhu said that based on the current information, the "operator" behind the Helcoin China website may be suspected of fraud, but the final filing of a case and the characterization of the case must be approved and determined by the county-level public security organs.

The reporter learned that Heercoin investors in other parts of the country also chose to call the police. They handed over evidence such as transfer records and bank statements to the police, hoping to eventually recover their losses. Officer Zhu revealed that after preliminary investigations, the police suspected that the behind-the-scenes manipulators, including Liu, might have committed the crime in a provincial city in Hunan. However, he also said that because online transactions are not offline transactions and have characteristics such as concealment, many investors, including Ms. Li, have never seen the real "behind the scenes" of the Heercoin investment platform in reality, and they cannot provide conclusive evidence, which has brought considerable difficulties to the investigation of the case.

Officer Zhu said, "When the public security organs arrest people, they need sufficient evidence to bring them back. We don't have direct evidence to prove that these people have committed the crime. We can only say that we suspect they are related to the case, but we don't have conclusive evidence to prove that they are the suspects in the case."

Since 2015 , various financial products have collapsed one after another. The Ponzi schemes behind them have developed rapidly on the Internet, and have spawned dazzling deception methods, which are still being staged in various places. So, is Hull Coin one of them? Why are so many people flocking to it? In addition, there are various virtual currencies on the market, such as Baichuan Coin, Onecoin, and Treasure Coin. What is the real face behind them?