Nearly half a million dollars was stolen from an Alexandria man in a cryptocurrency scam from a person he met on Tinder, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.
On Jan. 28, the victim reported to the Alexandria Police Department that he had been scammed out of approximately $480,000 of his own money.
The victim told police that on Oct. 22, 2025, he matched with a woman named Leah on Tinder and started texting with her. The suspect told him that her real name was Laura Su and asked to move their conversation to WhatsApp after a few days of texting. From there, the suspect started to discuss investing in short-term gold trading through the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
On Oct. 30, 2025, the victim deposited $10,000 into a Coinbase account, according to the affidavit. The suspect claimed he made a $2,000 profit and showed him how to withdraw his funds. The victim deposited $100,000 less than a week later on Nov. 5, 2025, another $190,100 on Nov. 25, 2025, and $128,800 on Jan. 2, 2026.
On Christmas Day (Dec. 25, 2025), the victim told the suspect that he needed to pay bills, and she helped him withdraw $9,800. The affidavit also said the suspect later convinced him to withdraw $500,000 to cover the capital gains tax on his purported profits and advised him that a brokerage fee of $151,688 was required before he could withdraw.
“[The victim] stated that he was only able to come up with $51,784.34, which he deposited on Jan. 27, 2026, and ‘Laura’ advised him that she paid the remaining $99,903.66,” according to the search warrant affidavit. “[The victim] was then advised that the transactions were verified, but the payment was received nine days late, so the brokerage fee incurred an additional late fee of $13,652.”
On Jan. 28, the victim was advised by a private company that conducts crypto currency investigations that he was being scammed.
“[Crypto trading platform] Bitget provided transaction details to where the funds moved and that the funds were transferred on the TRON blockchain and converted to the [cryptocurrency] Tether,” according to the search warrant affidavit.
APD confirmed that the transactions occurred and tracked some of the funds to a Bitget Exchange account and a wallet controlled by Binance.com. The Binance.com account was traced to an account holder in New Taipei City, Taiwan, according to the search warrant affidavit. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.
