Friendly Scam ? : Horst Cerni

In the middle of January I got a notice from Linkedin.

I wasn’t active on that site and hadn’t really paid any attention to job offers etc,, but now somebody by the name of André S. told me that my profile looked interesting and they would like to include me in a project planned for St.Croix. He asked for my telephone number and said his boss, Jenelle S., would get in touch with me via WhatsApp.

I was curious about this “project”, and doing something for our island was of interest to me, even though I couldn’t be too involved. Jenelle wrote me a very nice letter, saying she owns a pharmaceutical company and has big plans to get a program going in supermarkets etc. For the moment it is located in New York and that St.Croix would come later. She said that her uncle is billionaire Jonathan Gray, the President and COO of the Blackstone Group.

I looked for Jenelle and her company on the internet, but couldn’t find anything. Jonathan Gray, though, was legitimate, and I thought it would be interesting to work a little with a billionaire.

Jenelle said she is from Berlin, her mother is a scientist and her father in real estate and is a veteran. I never was able to get any clear information, and her references seemed blurred. She wrote in good English and although I suggested we should correspond in German, she only wrote to me one letter (maybe translated by Google?).

She had gone bankrupt in Berlin, since her company, Berlin Hope, couldn’t produce a vaccine against COVID 19. She had lost one million Euros, She said she had come to the United States on the urging of her father and uncle Jon, two years ago. and in the US she earned a lot by trading, and was able to pay her debt and to buy an apartment on Park Avenue, and even a Porsche ( - I wondered what she could do with it in NYC - racing from one stop light to the next?).

So she said that her financial adviser, Joe C., would show me how to make money. Well, that became a little confusing, because her adviser’s name was Joe, but he wanted to be called Jon, but Jon was her “uncle”.

Joe was very insistent and wanted to teach me how to trade. He managed to get me involved in a trading session. It was very professional. He basically told me what to click on, It took about twenty minutes and went well. I would have earned $ 26,000, if I had made an investment. According to him, trading sessions are at specific times and only announced shortly before the time.

Send your money in crypto to an account in Indonesia

He set up an account for me - but all the way at a bank in Indonesia, and I questioned how I could possibly go to a bank so far away to withdraw money,

Also, the trading was in Crypto currencies, which I felt uncomfortable with. He gave me all kinds of explanations on how the money could be transferred, but it always seemed to be in Crypto. He asked if we have ATMs here, and I discovered that there are several in Puerto Rico for Crypto, but none on St.Croix.

I asked him, why he wants to be called Jon, instead of Joe, which is the name on his card. He never explained. Meanwhile, Jenelle urged me to invest so I could get lots of money.

Since I couldn’t get any information on these two people, I decided to check on “Jon C.” and found an email address for an executive at Graystone. I wrote to him, as if I was writing to Joe, asking if we couldn’t correspond via email, and also that I felt uncomfortable with Crypto currencies. Jon C. answered right away, saying that this might be a scam and that Graystone never works in Crypto,

The real 'Jon' replies

I sent this information to both, Joe C. and Jenelle, and told them that I can’t trust them. The photo of Jon and Joe are identical, so it seems possible that Joe assumed the personality of Jon C. from Graystone - definitely an identity theft.

As to Jenelle, I don’t know if her photo is real. She had claimed to be divorced and a widow and that her ex-husband was killed in Afghanistan, And that she has a six-year old daughter, who stayed in Germany. I thought that a mother leaving her young daughter behind was very cruel. She claimed to be religious, and she helped a church in Lower Manhattan to distribute food to the homeless on Sundays. She was also promising to make a donation of $ 100,000 to UNICEF, but I doubt she ever did.

There were several inconsistencies, although our six-week correspondence was friendly and interesting. She wanted to do telephone conversations, which I declined. She knew that I was married and had a family and that I was old. It didn’t bother her (maybe she expected some inheritance?).

I was never asked to give money to anyone or any project, just to establish an account for trading (- I indicated I could invest $ 1,000, but never did). I don’t know how they could earn something (- Joe said when I make more than $ 200,000, he’ll get 15%), maybe by stealing part of “my winnings” or telling me I didn’t earn anything?

Anyhow, this 2025 “trading adventure” is over.