Skip to main content
NOPE
Medium reported severity

Bitcoin adviser reports a client lost his retirement savings to a romance scam; the scammer's message said the persona's pictures were AI-made

Bitcoin security adviser Terence Michael wrote on X on 14 December 2025 that a client who had recently reached one bitcoin had lost all of it to a 'pig butchering' romance and trading scam. A screenshot attached to the post shows the client telling the adviser that the woman he had been talking with did not exist, that he had paid for a ticket to meet her and her family on 26 December, and that his retirement funds and family savings were gone. The screenshot also shows the scammer's message to the client saying that this was not real, that she was not the person in the pictures, that the pictures were AI and other people's pictures, and that no funds could be withdrawn. BitDegree (15 December 2025) and a Cointelegraph explainer (31 December 2025) relay the adviser's account; the adviser said he had tried several times to stop the transfers. The client's identity and location, the scam's start date and the tools used are unknown. The Cointelegraph explainer's description of live deepfake video calls does not appear in the adviser's post and is not established.

AI system
Unidentified image tool
Unknown
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
14 December 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Financial Loss
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Finance · Relationships
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account
3 claims: 3 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: AI-generated pictures of a romance-scam persona (per the scammer's message relayed in the adviser's post)

What Happened

Bitcoin security adviser Terence Michael wrote on X on 14 December 2025 that a client who had recently reached one bitcoin had lost all of it to a 'pig butchering' romance and trading scam. A screenshot attached to the post shows the client telling the adviser that the woman he had been talking with did not exist, that he had paid for a ticket to meet her and her family on 26 December, and that his retirement funds and family savings were gone. The screenshot also shows the scammer's message to the client saying that this was not real, that she was not the person in the pictures, that the pictures were AI and other people's pictures, and that no funds could be withdrawn. BitDegree (15 December 2025) and a Cointelegraph explainer (31 December 2025) relay the adviser's account; the adviser said he had tried several times to stop the transfers. The client's identity and location, the scam's start date and the tools used are unknown. The Cointelegraph explainer's description of live deepfake video calls does not appear in the adviser's post and is not established.

Reported harm

Adviser-reported loss of a client's Bitcoin retirement savings

How Harm Occurred

A scam persona presented through pictures that the scammer later described as AI-generated and other people's pictures built a romantic and trading relationship with the client, who transferred all his bitcoin and paid for a ticket to meet her.

What remains unknown

  • The client's location, the scam's start date, the generation tool and the exact value lost beyond the adviser's 'all his Bitcoin' and '1 BTC' are unknown.
  • The persona's pictures and the payment records were not inspected; the scammer's message is known only through the screenshot the adviser posted.
  • The Cointelegraph explainer's statement about real-time deepfake video calls is not in the adviser's post and is not established.
  • Whether the client reported the loss to police or recovered anything is not reported.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The scammer's own message to the client, shown in the screenshot the adviser attached to his X post, states that the persona's pictures were AI and other people's pictures. The client wrote in the same screenshot that the woman he had been talking with did not exist, that he had paid for a ticket to meet her, and that his retirement funds were gone, and the adviser's post says the client lost all his bitcoin. The AI-generated pictures are the material that presented a non-existent woman to the client during the relationship through which he transferred his bitcoin. The tool is unnamed, the pictures were not inspected, and the Cointelegraph explainer's description of live deepfake video calls is not supported by the post.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The scammer's message to the client, shown in the screenshot the adviser posted, said that this was not real and that she was 'not the person you see in pictures', the pictures being AI and other people's pictures; BitDegree relays this as an admission that the photos were AI-created.

Causal attribution. All three sources carry the adviser's own post and the screenshot he attached; they form one reporting chain, so the claim stays reported. Causation is alleged by the adviser and the client; no payment record, image or police report was inspected.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Attached screenshot, pasted message from the scammer (agent transcription): 'am not the person you see in pictures it's AI and other people pictures'
  • bitdegree.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Body: 'Michael added that after the money was transferred, the scammer admitted that the photos used during their conversations were fake and created with artificial intelligence (AI) tools.'
Reported The client, who had recently reached one bitcoin, sent all of it to someone posing as a trader and romantic partner despite the adviser's repeated warnings; he wrote that his retirement funds were gone and that he had paid for a ticket to meet her and her family on 26 December.

Causal attribution. All three sources carry the adviser's own post and the screenshot he attached; they form one reporting chain, so the claim stays reported. Causation is alleged by the adviser and the client; no payment record, image or police report was inspected.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Post text: 'who just lost all his Bitcoin' and 'He finally made it to 1 BTC.'; attached screenshot, message from the client (agent transcription): 'I paid for a ticket to meet her and her family in California for December 26'; full post text: 'I had numerous phone calls (hours!) and a string of text messages with him because he refused to believe me' and '(he bought her a plane ticket)'
  • bitdegree.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Body: 'According to Michael, his client sent all of his Bitcoin to someone pretending to be a trader.'; 'Michael explained that he tried several times to stop his client from making the transfer.'; 'In addition to losing his Bitcoin retirement savings, the man also bought a plane ticket for the person he believed he would meet.'
  • tradingview.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Body: 'lost his entire retirement fund, one full Bitcoin'
Reported The adviser's X post of 14 December 2025 is the original account; BitDegree and the Cointelegraph explainer relay it.

Causal attribution. Established by the relays' own attribution and the post's syndication record; the relays add no independent account.

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read on 2026-10-07: the X syndication endpoint (HTTP 200) returned only the first 280 characters of this long-form post; the full text was read through the fxtwitter API mirror (HTTP 200, bodies/verify-upd-adviser-xpost-fx.json). The attached screenshot of the client's message and the scammer's message was transcribed from the image by the research agent (an AI). The client's first name appears in the screenshot and is not reproduced. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The adviser's post and the relays do not say where the client or the scammer lived or where the exchanges took place. The ticket's destination (California) does not establish the client's residence. Countries remain unknown.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-07: A first-person account by a named adviser, read in his X post with the attached screenshot, describes a concrete financial loss by one client connected to a romance persona whose pictures the scammer said were AI-made. Two relays repeat the post and add no independent support. All claims stay reported, the client is not named, the amount is given as the adviser states it (one bitcoin), and the location, dates and tools remain unknown.

People described

An adult man, a client of a Bitcoin security adviser; not named

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

The adviser's post and the attached screenshot describe one client who lost all his bitcoin and his retirement funds. The adviser is the reporter, not a harmed person; the family members mentioned in the screenshot are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Bitcoin adviser reports a client lost his retirement savings to a romance scam; the scammer's message said the persona's pictures were AI-made. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-adviser-reports-client-ai-romance-photo-bitcoin-loss

BibTeX

@misc{2025_adviser_reports_client_ai_romance_photo_bitcoin_loss,
  title = {Bitcoin adviser reports a client lost his retirement savings to a romance scam; the scammer's message said the persona's pictures were AI-made},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-adviser-reports-client-ai-romance-photo-bitcoin-loss}
}

Related cases

Low Unidentified image tool

Honduras: national police say a woman faked her own kidnapping twice and sent her partner AI-generated images of injuries to obtain money

Honduras's National Police announced on 14 October 2026 that its anti-kidnapping unit (UNAS) of the Police Investigations Directorate (DPI) had arrested a woman, under a court warrant, on suspicion of simulating a non-existent offence related to kidnapping and of using false documents. According to the police statement, the investigation found that she had faked her own kidnapping twice, in episodes reported on 21 April and 1 June 2026, to obtain money from her partner to pay personal debts, and that she received an initial deposit of 2,000 lempiras after making the partner believe she was being held and that her captors were demanding money. Police say the agents determined that she presumably used artificial-intelligence tools to generate false images of injuries and bruises, which were sent to the partner to make the partner believe she had been beaten by the supposed kidnappers, together with apparently forged hospital documents. According to the investigation file, she said after being located that she planned both episodes and used AI to make the images. She was brought before the issuing court; no court finding is reported.

Medium Unidentified image tool

Chandigarh: a PhD scholar says a man posing as an IPS officer took cash, gold and a laptop; Dainik Bhaskar reports police found his uniform photo was AI-made

A PhD scholar in Chandigarh told police that in March 2026 she found a man's profile on a matrimonial site showing him in uniform, and that he presented himself at different times as an excise assistant commissioner, an IPS officer and a RAW agent. Dainik Bhaskar reported on 29 September 2026 that the police investigation found the IPS uniform photo on the profile was not real and had been made with the help of AI; no officer is quoted on this, and the other reports read do not mention AI. According to her complaint, he took about Rs 11.5 lakh in cash, gold jewellery and a laptop with promises of marriage and a government job; the Tribune adds about Rs 7.88 lakh in online transfers between March and June, and police put the total at about Rs 30 lakh. Bhaskar reports that he had a bank account opened in her name with her documents and kept its passbook, ATM card and SIM card until the bank froze it over suspicious transactions. When she asked for her money and belongings back, he threatened to circulate her photographs on social media; the Tribune adds a threat of harm to her brother. A case was registered in August. Police arrested a man from Rohtak, Haryana, who was produced in court on Monday 28 September 2026 and remanded for one day.

Medium Unidentified image tool

Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh: a woman is arrested and later refused bail after a railway officer's wife complained that she sent an AI-made objectionable image of the officer, demanded ₹15 lakh and threatened to circulate pictures of women in the family

Jhansi police arrested a 27-year-old woman in Prayagraj in September 2026 on charges of editing photos with AI, blackmail and extortion, after the wife of a senior railway officer living in Jhansi filed an FIR on 2 August 2026. According to the complaint as relayed by Aaj Tak, UP Tak, Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala, the woman threatened to circulate objectionable pictures of women in the family, demanded ₹15 lakh and threatened to kill the family, and out of fear the family paid her ₹40,000 in total on different dates between January and June 2026. On 31 July she sent an objectionable image of the officer to his wife's phone, an image police say she made with AI. Aaj Tak places the ₹15 lakh demand after that image; Dainik Bhaskar reports the complaint as dating the demand and a death threat to the woman's visit to the family's government house on 2 June. Police recovered two phones and a laptop, and Amar Ujala reports that police will have the images examined forensically. On 1 October 2026 an Additional Sessions Judge in Jhansi rejected the woman's bail plea. In police custody after her arrest she said the FIR against her was fake. The images were not inspected.

Low Unidentified image tool

Durg (Chhattisgarh) police say a fake marriage bureau used AI-made photos of fictional women to take fees from people seeking marriage

Police in Durg district, Chhattisgarh, India, said in a statement reported on 30 October 2026 that they had raided a fake marriage bureau in Bhilai on 29 October and arrested its operator. According to the police account carried by regional outlets, the operator said under questioning that he advertised on Facebook and Instagram under three matrimony names using photos of fictional young women prepared with AI and fake mobile numbers. People in other states who wanted to marry contacted the bureau, were promised marriage to the woman they chose, paid a fee of 2,000 rupees and other sums by QR code, and were then blacklisted and cut off. Police said complaints against the bureau's bank accounts were registered on the national Samanvay portal and that the operation had run for about three months. A case was registered under sections 317(2) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the operator was remanded in judicial custody. The number of people who paid and the total taken are not reported, and the AI tool is not named.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents