He said: “It is embarrassing – you don’t want to tell anyone because they will think you are an idiot but this is all in hindsight. These people have to be stopped. I want to expose this company and make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Tom – and many others – have mainly dealt with a man named Chris O’Brien, who is understood to run the company and communicates with clients using the WhatsApp messaging service. Tom, who has a 16-month-old grandchild, managed to withdraw a total of £6000 from his account in between depositing the cash and asking for £10,000. His balance at the time said he had £99,000.
"The first £5,000 I invested was out of my pension after a work colleague showed me the profit he had been making and the money he had taken out. I realised something was wrong when I was met with constant excuses when I tried to withdraw £8,500. From there, the money is transferred into a cryptocurrency bank account, a authenticator app is downloaded and this allows Safe Holdings take the money out to “trade” with it. Users can watch the progress of their investment in an online account, with the numbers on the screen always showing a huge profit.
Safe Holdings is an Offshore Ltd company, likely based within the Virgin Isles, and registered at an address in the Grenadines – leaving Police Scotland with no relevant powers or authority to investigate the alleged fraud as it is out with their jurisdiction.