The fake bitcoin mine
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With crypto currencies – like Bitcoin and Troon - booming there’s never been a better time to mine for crypto online. Mines in this context describe hundreds of computers that solve complex mathematical puzzles to produce cryptocurrency. And with many wanting to jump onto the crypto band wagon mines are springing up across the world - even fake ones. For Assignment, James Clayton speaks to two Indian victims of a crypto scam - who thought they were investing in a mine, which in fact did not exist. He looks at how one of his own BBC reports was used by the scammers as part of the deception. And he investigates how scammers were able to extract money from victims with seeming impunity. With India close to banning crypto currency currencies all together - are crypto scams ruining the Bitcoin dream?
Reporter: James Clayton Producer: Regan Morris Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Hacker in front of a computer. Credit: Witthaya Prasongsin)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Namo Lanter Combo and my podcast, Dear Dota, is available now. |
| 0:05.4 | It's a handbook to life for daughters everywhere. Find out more at the end of this podcast. |
| 0:14.0 | I thought I could make some quick money. That is where, you know, actually made me fall into this |
| 0:19.9 | trap is what I should say. I don't know. I'm just lost so far. It's now. Take a time, take a time. |
| 0:29.1 | Are you okay, Chiranjeevi? I am. I am James. I'm absolutely. Yeah, but you know, I should say |
| 0:36.7 | the entire episode is now haunting me actually. This is Chiranjeevi. He's telling me about five |
| 0:44.2 | traumatic days in his life when he became the victim of an online cryptocurrency scam. I was so |
| 0:50.9 | stressed because, you know, I took out the entire family emergency money. I nobody knows about it. |
| 0:56.8 | I was, I was, I don't know, like who I should share this with. I should say I was completely lost in |
| 1:03.2 | emotions. Chiranjeevi is the last person you'd think would fall into such a trap. He's an educated man |
| 1:10.6 | who works in the tech industry. And yet he was defrauded out of his entire life savings. |
| 1:16.5 | I'm James Clayton and on this week's assignment on the BBC World Service, I investigate how |
| 1:22.0 | Chiranjeevi and others fell prey to a cryptocurrency hoax, a hoax in which I inversantly played a part. |
| 1:31.9 | Chiranjeevi was born in the early 1980s in India. He says with some pride that he was always a good |
| 1:38.8 | people. My mom tells that I was a good kid growing up with not, you know, a lot of fantasies or |
| 1:45.4 | teenage stanchions. Overall, I should say it was a nice upbringing from my parents and my siblings. |
| 1:52.3 | As a kid, I was a good guy. I was doing well in my studies. |
| 1:57.2 | In fact, Chiranjeevi was such a good student. He managed to get a place at an American University |
| 2:02.8 | to study engineering. He was destined for big things until he got an unexpected call from home. |
| 2:09.2 | I had a personal tragedy back home where I lost my father. It was unexpected. So I had to come back |
| 2:16.4 | to take it off my mom. A career in the US, a ticket to mega money had gone. Instead, he took a job |
| 2:24.6 | at an Indian tech company. The money was fine, but nothing special. Chiranjeevi married and they now |
... |
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