A circular social engineering scam that compels the victim to keep paying to reach a “cash-out” threshold on a fake investment that claims celebrity endorsement has been detected across Europe.
Group-IB’s cyber emergency response team detected the scam targeting people in nine countries, including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.
“The main goal of these fake investment schemes is to convince the victims to repeatedly transfer funds to the fake investment portal,” explained Group-IB. “The victims are usually promised huge returns on their investments and are shown ‘how I got rich’ stories featuring celebrities.”
Group-IB caught the confidence tricksters in their lie by posing as a victim. The scam involved an artful interweaving of offline and online social engineering methods, luring the gullible with websites and “rogue Facebook pages” and other fraudulent postings on legitimate platforms such as YouTube.
“The message displayed on those platforms makes it seem like there is a bulletproof service for making an online income,” said Group-IB. “The messages state that the service is used by famous people globally. This can be from Elon Musk to local Dutch and UK celebrities.”
A unique offer!
In keeping with most such con tricks, the message claims “a unique offer” that just requires a “minimal deposit of 250 euros to get started.”
“Once the victim…
