Malta iGaming Millionaire Loses €1.25 M to Fake Mr Beast in 5-Hour Instagram Scam

# Fake Mr Beast Chat Costs Malta-Based Millionaire €1.25 Million in 24-Hour Scam Blitz

Sliema, Malta – When 42-year-old iGaming tycoon “Christian” (name changed on legal advice) opened Instagram while waiting for his espresso at a busy St Julian’s café last Tuesday, the last thing he expected was to lose €1.25 million before the coffee got cold. Yet a single direct message—purportedly from YouTube philanthropist Mr Beast—has left the Maltese-resident millionaire facing the island’s biggest publicly-known influencer-impersonation fraud and triggered a national conversation about the perils of digital bravado in Europe’s gaming capital.

According to police filings seen by *Hot Malta*, the brief exchange began at 09:17 with a blue-tick account named “mrbeastoffical” promising Christian inclusion in “a private €2 million giveaway for high-net-worth Malta residents who back our new crypto casino app.” Within minutes the chat moved to WhatsApp, where a deep-fake voice note—complete with Mr Beast’s unmistakable North-Carolina drawl—congratulated Christian on being “the perfect brand ambassador for Malta’s booming tech scene.”

## “It sounded like Malta’s next big fintech story”

“It was slick,” Christian told us from the forensic cyber-crime unit on the sixth floor of Police Headquarters, Floriana. “They knew Valletta’s Blockchain Summit, name-dropped [Economy Minister] Silvio Schembi’s 2022 AI white paper, even referenced my €175,000 donation to the Malta Community Chest Fund. I genuinely thought I was investing in something that would put Malta on the map again.”

Between 09:45 and 14:22 Christian wired seven tranches—ranging from €50,000 to €650,000—to accounts in Lithuania, the Cayman Islands and, ironically, North Carolina. Only when the fraudsters demanded an eighth payment “before the Central Bank of Malta’s 3 p.m. cut-off” did Christian walk across the road to BOV and ask a bemused cashier whether “regulatory crypto escrows” were normal. By 15:04 the real Mr Beast’s management had confirmed the giveaway was fake; by 15:30 Christian’s accounts were frozen; by 16:00 every Maltese news portal had the story.

## The local angle: “We’re an island, but we’re not insulated”

Detective Inspector Lara Ellul, who heads the newly-formed Influencer Fraud Task Force, says Malta’s reputation as a tech-savvy jurisdiction makes it an “irresistible petri dish” for fraud. “We host 300+ iGaming firms, thousands of crypto influencers, and more Lamborghinis per capita than Monaco. Criminals know bragging rights are part of our economy,” she explains. “Victims don’t just lose money; they lose face in a village-centric culture where everyone knows your business.”

Indeed, Christian’s case has dominated village square gossip from Marsaxlokk fish market to Gozo’s Mgarr ferry queue. “Wealthy foreigners move here for privacy, but the irony is that Malta’s size makes anonymity impossible,” says sociologist Dr Anna Vella. “A €1.25 million scam becomes communal property. It’s today’s version of the traditional *ħamallu* narrative—public shaming as social currency.”

## Community impact: from memes to regulatory reform

Within hours, Maltese meme pages superimposed Christian’s face on the “Mr Beast giving away money” thumbnail, while TikTokers filmed fake cash drops at the Tigné Point fountains. But beneath the banter lies genuine fear. “If it can happen to a guy who sponsors our youth rugby team, it can happen to anyone,” says Swieqi resident Rebecca Zammit, 28, whose father received an identical—but ignored—message the same morning.

Economy Minister Silvio Schembi has seized the moment, announcing a €3 million public-private “ScamSafe Malta” campaign featuring local influencers Sara Grech and Ben Camille. Meanwhile the Malta Gaming Authority is drafting a directive requiring crypto-tied promotions to carry a mandatory “not an investment advice” watermark and a QR code that verifies advertiser identity against a government whitelist.

## Lessons from a latte

Back in St Julian’s, the café where it all began has cheekily renamed its €2.50 espresso the “Million-Dollar Macchiato,” donating 50c from every sale to the Malta Cyber-Crime Victim Support Group. Christian, for his part, has hired former Europol analyst Daniela Caruana to run financial-literacy workshops at local schools. “I can’t erase the loss, but I can stop someone else’s nanna from handing over her *fjamma* savings,” he says, voice cracking.

As the sun sets over a placid Spinola Bay, the moral feels unmistakably Maltese: in a country where family networks double as newsfeeds, the cheapest insurance policy is a quick WhatsApp to *Nannu* asking, “Does this sound too good to be true?” Because on these rocks, even millionaires have cousins who’ll happily tell them, *“Ħaqq al-€1.25 miljun, Christian, kemm kont imġebbed?”*

And sometimes that’s all the cybersecurity you need.