He found one Foreign Currency Investment Plan through an Instagram Account.

“At first I invested a thousand pounds (R $ 7.49 thousand) and then I invested a little more after seeing that I was making money. In the end I lost 17 thousand pounds (R $ 127.3 thousand),” he told the BBC’s Money Box program.

Jonathan is one of the growing number of Instagram users who have lost money on social network scams.

Since the launch of the Kovid-19 pandemic last year, the average number of Instagram fraud reports reported each month has increased by more than 50 percent, according to figures from Action Fraud, the UK’s national police center for crime and cyber fraud.

There has been an increase in the value that users say they have lost in these scams. Before Pandemic, the average was $ 60,000 (R $ 449,000) per month, but now it has risen to $ 200,000 (R $ 1.5 million) per month.

Jonathan said Gurwin Singh, a corrupt man from Plymouth in south-west England, had become rich by investing in foreign exchange.

Singh offered his followers on Instagram the opportunity to accompany him on his dealings.

He said When I join, all the business I do will be copied to my account“.

Jonathan said Singh had promised about a profit. Jonathan was there that day Access to the investment platform Infinox, Where you can analyze your performance.

Initially, profits increased and he invested more money. But he did not A few months later I began to suspect that the investment had fallen within two months.

“I tried to withdraw the money, but the system said the operation failed. I asked for an explanation, and their justification was that profits had fallen due to Brexit (withdrawal from the EU from the UK). A few days later, all my money was gone and I could no longer contact Guru or anyone else concerned.“I complained to the police, my banks and Instagram.”

‘People are pulling’

Cyber ​​security expert Jake Moore says scams like this have become more common with the participation of many young people on social media.

“People are torn, they want to believe it, they want this lifestyle, especially these days, when it’s hard for young people to find work,” he said. “There are definitely more people looking for new and different ways to make more money.”

“There are billions of social media accounts. The algorithm is not yet complex enough. We can not put that control on computers. Social media companies have a long way to go.”

He suggests it to social network users Never engage in money when dealing with strangers.

“There are accounts that offer amazing schemes to double, triple or quadruple your money. These are scams,” he said.

The Facebook, Who owns it Instagram, Says it anticipates this kind of content with spam detection technologies and is looking into Singh’s account.

“There is no room for fraudulent or unauthorized behavior on Instagram. A security team of 35,000 people works to keep our platforms safe, and we block millions of accounts every day,” a Facebook spokesman said.

Singh has been added to the list of illegal financial agents, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates financial markets in the UK.

The agency recommended that investors only deal with reputable finance companies.

The anti-fraud police office said that Singh’s activities were being investigated but no investigation had taken place.

Singh did not respond to BBC interview requests.

A spokesman for Infinix said the platform used by Jonathan rejected all suggestions that the company would operate without integrity or break the rules. A spokesman declined to comment on Singh’s actions as they were not related to the services provided by Infinox.

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