I Lost $118,000 to a Fake Celebrity Crypto Endorsement and How I Recovered Part of It

My name is Jacob. I’m 46, living in Arizona, and I’ll be honest, I’ve always followed financial influencers online but never really thought I’d fall for anything dangerous.

I wasn’t desperate, just curious. That’s why when I came across an ad on Instagram featuring a well-known celebrity talking about a “new AI-powered crypto platform,” it didn’t even cross my mind that it could be fake.

The video looked real. The voice matched. The captions were convincing. I was unaware of the existence of deepfake crypto-scams and celebrity fake endorsements at that time. It occurred to me to think, “Well, that must be safe,” since he is supporting it."

I tapped the link and was taken to a smooth dashboard with live charts and numbers taking real-time data. One (senior account advisor) called me right away, and he mentioned how senior investors were doubling their returns. He was fast-paced, sounded self-assured, and continued referring to the celebrity as though they were married.

It was my first failure to find out that I had trusted my face, which I knew, rather than determining whether the profile was authentic.

I invested $2,000 at first. The dashboard showed it growing to $3,500 within hours. They even called me to “congratulate” me.

Looking back, I now know that fake trading dashboards are built to trick you into adding more money. But at that moment, I felt excited, even proud.

So I kept going. $5,000. $20,000. $40,000. By the time I realized something wasn’t right, I had transferred $118,000. My savings. My emergency fund. My future.

Then suddenly, I couldn’t withdraw anything. The website kept giving “verification errors.” The advisor stopped responding. The Instagram ad vanished, and the real celebrity posted a warning saying scammers were using deepfake videos to impersonate him.

I was completely shocked. I didn’t sleep for nights. All I kept searching for was “How do I recover money from a fake celebrity crypto scam?” and “Can stolen crypto be traced?” My bank couldn’t reverse anything, and the local police honestly looked as confused as I was.

I came across Global Financial Recovery while researching how these impersonation scams operate. I sent an inquiry, not expecting anything. But they responded the same day. Somebody, for the first time in this occurrence, actually understood the scam and did not blame me for the scam.

They gathered all the screenshots, transaction IDs, the fake dashboard link, and all my chat history, and their blockchain department began to trace the wallets. They described how the scammers engage in money laundering by using mixers and bridges to conceal funds, which I had never heard of before.

Weeks later, they wrote me with the news that I sincerely did not anticipate: they had tracked and retrieved some of my stolen crypto (around $100K). I cried at my desk, partly because it made me feel relieved and partly because I had so far felt in control again.

They’re still working on the rest, and maybe they won’t recover everything, but getting even a portion back gave me the strength to breathe again.

If you’re in the same position searching, “Can I recover my funds from a fake profile scam?” or “Is crypto recovery even possible after a deepfake endorsement scam?” Don’t give up. You’re not stupid. These scams are built to deceive anyone. Their crypto recovery experts helped me take back what I thought was gone forever, and they might be able to help you, too.