A Batavia resident reported losing $648,000 in a Bitcoin investment to a person met through the dating app Bumble, according to Batavia police reports released after a Freedom of Information Act request.

The resident, 45, reported the theft to police on Nov. 20.

According to the report, the person met someone Aug. 5 on Bumble who presented as a Naperville investor “looking for a life partner.”

The Batavia resident began with a $1,000 investment in CoinBase, a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrency.

The investor encouraged the person “to add more and more money” to the account, so they “took money out of retirement account to add to ... cryptocurrency investment and took out a loan to invest even more,” the police report stated.

The Naperville investor also encouraged the resident to take out a loan against their house, according to the report. The resident refused but added another $168,000 of their own money to the digital currency investment, the report stated.

Around early October, the resident checked the digital currency account and saw that the funds were gone, according to the report.

The report states that on Nov. 26 and Dec. 1, the officer did not receive information requested from the resident and could not leave a message because the mailbox was full.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, crypto – that is, digital currency – is a common way for scammers to steal money, as more than 46,000 people reported losing more than $1 billion since 2021.

“Scammers lurk in online dating apps and on social media, too,” according to the FTC website. “These scams might also involve an investment: your new love interest might boast about being rich and offer to help you get started in crypto investing. Don’t do it — those ‘investments’ go straight into their pockets.”

The website urges those who suspect a scam to report it to ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and to notify the social networking site or the app that was involved.