COCOA BEACH, Fla. – A Cocoa Beach man lost $2.5 million in an investment scheme that started with a friend request on Facebook.

Richard Dunlap said he didn’t know the woman who sent the friend request but saw that they had mutual friends, so he accepted her.

They soon started direct messaging each other.

Then the conversation moved to WhatsApp.

“After months, this person said, look, I invest and I do really well on these platforms, you know, you might want to consider it,” Dunlap said.

The crooks introduced Dunlap to cryptocurrency trading, showed him apps to download, and coached him through his first trade.

“My initial trades were yielding somewhere in the vicinity of 40%. That’s not terrible,” Dunlap said.

Seeing apparent profits, Dunlap made a $3,800 withdrawal without issue.

“And I said, well, this must be real,” he said. “And of course, I was encouraged to deposit more money because more money, more returns.”

From January to March alone, Dunlap deposited $1.2 million, including two $200,000 deposits within two days.

He also emptied his 401(k) and savings accounts.

In the trading apps, Dunlap saw balances growing by hundreds of thousands of dollars, with his account showing more than $2.5 million.

But the profits were fake because the crooks controlled the app. When Dunlap tried to withdraw $395,000, he was blocked.

“It wasn’t until then that I fully realized what I had done to myself. You lost all that money,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap is not an isolated case. The Federal Trade Commission reports that Americans were defrauded out of $5.7 billion through investment scams last year, marking a $1 billion increase from the previous year.

Brian Watson, a forensic financial analyst with the U.S. Secret Service Orlando Field Office, said scams target people from all walks of life.

“I’ve seen people from CEOs, CFOs of big corporations to lawyers to, you know, grandmothers all fall for the same scam,” Watson said.

Watson recommends being wary of unsolicited investment advice, promises of high returns, and the need to use certain trading platforms, which are often manipulated by scammers.

Dunlap hopes sharing his story will help others.

“So that I can maybe, maybe prevent some of them from going through the same thing,” he said.

If you believe you have been the victim of a scam or want to share your story, contact Louis Bolden at lbolden@wkmq.com.