#reserve-capital

My 'broker' is demanding a 'reserve capital deposit' to release my profits. Is this another scam?

Feeling so stupid right now, but hoping someone can help. I got into forex trading a few months back after seeing some ads on social media, you know, the usual 'make passive income' stuff. Found this broker, IronFX offshore, through a friend who said they had good returns. I invested about $3k, then kept putting in a bit more, eventually got my account up to like, low five figures. Pretty exciting for me, never had that much money in one place before. Now I want to withdraw a significant chunk, and suddenly they're saying I need to deposit something called 'reserve capital' – like another 15% of my profits – to 'activate the withdrawal gateway'. They're saying it's standard procedure for large withdrawals to ensure liquidity. This sounds totally fishy to me. I've already put in so much. My partner is really mad, says i'm just throwing money away. Has anyone else encountered this? Is it a common scam tactic? What can I even do if I've been had? I'm in Cape Town.