A Daytona Beach Shores man was ensnared by a cryptocurrency investment scam that cost him $317,000 after he received a text from an attractive stranger asking him to let her dog out while she was out of town, according to new federal court records.

The man, identified only as Victim 1 in federal court records, wrote the stranger back to say she had the wrong number, but the chatty stranger kept the conversation going.

Astrid Orlov was how the stranger introduced herself. She lived with her uncle in Lake Nona, a bustling Orlando neighborhood.

Orlov and the man moved the conversation to What’sApp, then to video chat although the man couldn’t see her at all. Poor Internet connection was Orlov’s explanation why he couldn’t make out her face.

The court records don’t indicate if the tone of their conversations were platonic or romantic but their talks eventually turned to money. Gold, to be precise. And crypto.

Orlov said she successfully traded gold online and credited her success to her uncle who “would watch algorithms to determine what was going to happen daily with the price of gold,” according to federal court records filed this week in U.S. District Court’s Middle District of Florida in Orlando.

That convinced the man to invest in the trading platform XM Defi.

At Orlov’s urging to get things moving, he wire transferred $5,000 from his bank account to a Crypto account he started for her and then bought Bitcoin which he sent to the address Orlov gave him for XM Defi.

“‘Orlov’ instructed Victim 1 as to when he should buy and sell assets through the website to make a profit,” the federal court records said. “Following his initial investment, Victim 1 was able to view what he learned to be fictitious  ‘earnings’ on the website.”

It seemed legit since he withdrew about $278 in cryptocurrency from his XM Delfi account to his Crypto.com account.

“After his first successful withdrawal of what he believed to be profits from the website, Victim 1 believed that with ‘Orlov’s’ assistance, he could successfully trade gold and make a large amount of money on the platform,” federal court records said.

Following Orlov’s instructions, the man sent nearly $312,000 from February to May 2024 as he thought he was making deals on the website.

“During this time, Victim 1 conducted ‘trades’ on and through the ‘XM Defi’ fraudulent website. Nearly each time he conducted a trade, his investment on the website appeared to grow. Victim 1 stated that during this time, it appeared he only lost a small amount of money on two ‘trades,’” court records said.

But by April 2024, the man was having doubts.

Some of his funds were disappearing on XM Defi’s account balance.

He complained to Orlov who insisted everything was OK and she was a real person. She sent a picture of her Florida driver’s license as proof. (It was a fake. The state had no license under name, federal authorities said.)

The man realized he had been scammed when he couldn’t withdraw his money from XM Defi.

The Florida man wasn’t alone in being deceived, federal authorities said.

At least 16 total victims had lost more than $4 million after they reported receiving an innocuous  message from a stranger seemingly by accident — like a text, a friend message request or a phone call where a good-looking stranger seemed genuinely interested in getting to know them.

Beside Astrid Orlov, there was Jenny, Raphaela, Nina, Katie and Hui.

“The scammers sent pictures of attractive men and women to the victims representing themselves as the people in the pictures. The scammers also sent pictures of food, scenery, and pets to establish a rapport with the victims,” the federal court records said. “After a few weeks of conversation, the scammers began talking about ways they make large amounts of money investing in cryptocurrency. Through these conversations, the scammers convinced the victims to invest money into cryptocurrency with the promise of a profit.”

Eventually the victims logged onto fraudulent investment webpages that were, in reality, controlled by the scammers. The website looked real and seemed similar to real banking institutions to confuse their victims.

“They saw a webpage that reflected the money that they deposited and believed they had invested, posing as a legitimate cryptocurrency trading platform. Victims believed they could withdraw their principal and proceeds of their investment later,” federal authorities said in court records.

One of the unidentified victims reported losing as much $1.2 million.

The federal government filed a civil forfeiture complaint this week in U.S. District Court after seizing $4.1 million in July from an unhosted virtual currency address on the Ethereum blockchain. The money is currently in the United States Secret Service’s possession, according to court records.

“Cryptocurrencies have many known legitimate uses,” the federal government said in court records. “However, much like cash, cryptocurrencies can be used to facilitate illicit transactions and to launder criminal proceeds, particularly given the ease with which these assets can be moved with high levels of anonymity.”