It started through LinkedIn. Someone that had a profile with over 500 connections and a similar connection (1st). Started talking and slowly got into the crypto talk and they offered to show how you could make money doing short term trades. It showed success and I could withdraw money and got sucked in over time. IDIOT is all I can say about myself.
... I have involved authorities to see what, if anything, can be done.
This definitely falls into the pig butchering scam where scammers tries to slowly gain their victims trust until they make that one big deposit. It usually involves romance scam as well but not necessarily.
Since you're involving authorities, this might help you. It's from a victim of the said scam.
... I found a local support group, consisting of many victims, we are working with our local police dept on investigation and fbi in hopes of getting the scammers discovered and exposed! Should any victims out there reading this forum post and you require help / advice / support - you can visit
http://globalantiscam.org for more info.
While I cant vouch for the org, I did a quick search that time and they were quoted by reputable news outlets as a source of information which you should be able to confirm yourself by DYOR. However this doesn't mean you should blindly trust them! in fact you shouldn't do that to anyone. Be cautious to anything a stranger tries to offer, it would help to think twice before jumping to anything.