- Crypto-trading scam left victim in huge debt.
- Law firm has, so far, recovered £11,000.
- Scammers told victim he faced criminal prosecution.
- Stunt man has issued a warning to help other crypto scam victims.
- Our story first featured in The Sun newspaper
A stuntman who doubled for Hugh Bonneville in Paddington 2 has described the “mafia stronghold” of crypto scammers who stole nearly £50,000 from him.
Felix Leech, who has also appeared in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Game of Thrones, Aquaman 2 and The Batman, was left “sickened” and in debt after falling victim to a cruel and sophisticated scam.
The 34-year-old turned to crypto trading after joining a WhatsApp group advertised on Instagram.
But after a cautious initial investment of £1,000, he was lured into transferring ever-increasing amounts of money over a four-week period as the so-called ‘profits’ on his bogus trading account soared.
When he tried to withdraw his money, Felix was hoodwinked into paying large fees for non-existent anti-money laundering regulations and capital gains tax.
When the fraudsters asked him to pay a ‘fine’ of £20,000 for alleged insider trading, he confided in his uncle, who told him it was a scam.
But by then he was penniless, having invested £48,000, including all his savings, credit card borrowing and a £10,000 loan taken out with his bank, Lloyds.
Felix, who helped perform the stunt in Paddington 2 where Bonneville’s character straddled two trains, said he kept making the payments because he was “desperate”.
“They had a bit of a mafia stranglehold on me,” he added. “I was like ‘I have to do what they say because my money’s in there and I can’t get it out’.
“I was constantly asking the organiser in the WhatsApp group ‘is this the last payment? It better be the last payment’.
Felix, from Wembley, London, enlisted the help of solicitors from National Fraud Helpline solicitors, which runs the website www.nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk, which has so far managed to claw back about £11,000 from Lloyds Bank, which has a duty of care to protect customers from scams.
The no win, no fee law firm is now taking the case to the Financial Services Ombudsman to try to recover the remaining losses.
Leo McGowan, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline, said: “This was a particularly nasty scam because the fraudsters tried to frighten Felix into believing that he had done something wrong and may have committed a crime.
“The scammers will use any trick that can to try and get money out of people, including intimidation.”
Felix , who was the stunt double for Patrick Wilson as Orm in Aquaman 2, started to fall victim to the scam in June 2024, when he joined the WhatsApp group, which was full of supposed traders sharing their crypto investment successes.
He paid just over £1,000 to convert his cash into bitcoin, which was then transferred to the scammer’s platform.
Felix successfully withdrew two small amounts of £40 and £50, which convinced him the platform was genuine.
The organisers of the WhatsApp group would post trade tips several times a day, called ‘signals’, for investors to follow, earning alleged profits of between 30 and 70 per cent.
He was encouraged to pay more money to join an ‘elite group’, with “accelerated trading, better trades, and more profits on each one”.
The scammers continued to lie and he was egged on by people in the Whatsapp group who were in on the fraud.
This culminated in him losing a total of £48,000 and then he was told that he could face legal action for insider trading and he had to pay a £20,000 fine.
He confided in his uncle and a friend who both told him it was an outright lie.
“The scammers were so convincing, and I still don’t know how many people in the group were part of it and how many were punters like me.
“I later found out that a lot of the cryptocurrencies they were trading were completely made up.
The WhatsApp group disappeared in October as did the scamming websites.
Felix said the initial £11,000 settlement from Lloyds had made a huge difference to his finances and his peace of mind.
He added: “I’d been in debt for six months and it just consumes you the whole time. It’s helped massively, I’ve paid off all the loans and credit card debts and for the first time in six months I’m financially free.
“If I could get the rest back it would be a mind-blower. I’m in a relationship now so I could treat my girlfriend properly, and feel more confident because I would have enough money both to live off and to save if I don’t have immediate work come in.”
He hopes that telling his story will help others spot the early signs of a scam.
Find out how to avoid crypto scams and what to do if you become a victim.
We first placed the story in The Sun newsaper.
Do you need crypto scam help? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.