Dating Scam Hooks Victims With Fake Crypto Investments

[ad_1]

Online dating scams are all too common.

Sweet-talking, typing tricksters, wooing unsuspecting, hopeless romantics. Not out of love, but in love with boys or girls looking to steal your money.

“She put money in my wallet, in this app, and this app is super crazy, where it’s like a shadow. So everything seems to be working, but in the background they have total control. So , it shows, like you’re making money,” said Kevin Kok, a victim of a crypto scam.

This man from Florida says it cost him a lot of money.

“In total, I lost about $15,000,” Kok said.

But a new romance scam is now among the fastest growing in the United States, with the FBI warning Americans.

The scam is known as “pig butchering” and involves scam artists luring people into fake crypto investments.

“It’s called pig-slaughtering because the fraudster will fatten you up with promises of great returns and even entice you to invest,” said Amanda Senn, director of the Alabama Securities Commission. .

Being lured to invest in crypto while promising romantic, long-term companionship.

SEE MORE: New summer scam targets Amazon Prime and Apple accounts

“And often it’s a small investment up front, and the scammer will provide you with a small return on that investment. And you can do it two or three times before you kill. When they ask for a very large sum of money,” Senn said.

In Alabama, the state Securities Commission said 88 people collectively lost more than $22 million, falling prey to slick-looking fake websites.

“And so it pulls that victim into, you know, kind of a position of trust with the fraudster because, hey, they got a return, you know, maybe two or three times,” Senn said.

A scheme which, according to cybersecurity experts, is highly scripted.

“I think with crypto, the danger is that anybody can create their own cryptocurrency, or NFT, and offer it for sale, and you can pump and dump that stuff pretty easily without a lot of surveillance or regulation. And that makes it much harder to catch, you know, the bad guys doing that,” said Richard Forno, deputy director of the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County Center for Cybersecurity.

And the advice is basic but vital: if something seems too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.

“Treat someone you meet online the same way you would treat someone in person. You know, don’t suddenly open your checkbook or online accounts to a stranger,” Forno said.

Trending Stories at Scrippsnews.com

[ad_2]