Amid the rise of cyber fraud in the industry, California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) has published 17 public warnings on digital websites for alleged suspicious activities.
Per a report, the DFPI claims these supposed websites have been engaging in some fraudulent schemes focused mainly on residents in California.
Alleged Websites Mimicking Major Platforms to Scam Individuals
According to the DFPI’s latest warnings, numerous websites have been found imitating major popular legitimate digital asset service provider platforms such as Uniswap and Wintermute.
Platforms involved in the DFPI’s warnings for alleged devious activities include TeleTrade Options, Yong Ying Global Investment Company, Unison FX, ZC Exchange, Tosal Markets Limited, Trade 1960, and Tahoe Digital Exchange.
The warnings are a result of several complaints from multiple residents in California to the DFPI. Amounts ranging from $2000 to over $1 million are said to have been lost due to the fraudulent acts from these sites.
Given that the websites have mainly one goal in common, which is to scam individuals using ‘pig butchering’ tactics, a mutual theme in the complaint from residents was an investment offer in virtual currencies incentivized with the assurance of profitable returns.
Victims of these scams were said to be mostly contacted via social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, or Facebook, the scammers message the victims on these sites and fake romantic interests to win the trust of their victims.
Other fraudulent tactics the scammers used are Advance Fee Fraud, outright phishing, and impersonation. To warn individuals, DFPI stated that consumers should “exercise extreme caution before responding to any solicitation offering investment or financial services.”
Digital Asset Scams on The Rise
The rise of digital assets fraudsters is now beginning to be intimidating, various complaints have led to multiple warnings from officials and countries’ financial watchdogs. Last month, two Estonian citizens were detained over a $575 crypto scam and money laundering scheme.
As reported by BlockchainReporter, these two citizens swindled hundreds of thousands of victims through a multi-faceted scheme involving a scammy cryptocurrency mining service and luring victims to enter into fraudulent equipment rental contracts.
Prior to that, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already warned investors over the increasing pig butchering crypto scams. The FBI advised individuals to Verify the validity of any investment opportunity, be on the lookout for misspelled URLs and domain names impersonating financial institutions, especially cryptocurrency exchanges and not download any apps until the legitimacy is verified.
