On May 29, a resident of Mumbai’s Malabar Hill was duped of Rs 1.53 crore by cyber fraudsters promising good returns on investment in cryptocurrency via a fake website.
Two days prior, on May 27, Charkop police arrested a 23-year-old management graduate for duping investors of Rs 1.5 crore after offering to invest money in cryptocurrency.
Another person in June allegedly lost Rs 50 lakh to a cryptocurrency scam, in addition to other costs such as deposit amount, tax, etc.
Crypto scams are becoming increasingly popular, with all the elements that give an upper hand to scammers — no bank to flag questionable transactions, irreversible transfers, and rookie investors who are typically unaware of how crypto transactions work.
Modus Operandi
To deceive the unwary, scammers develop fake cryptocurrency trading sites or counterfeits of legitimate crypto wallets. These phoney websites frequently have domain names that are similar to, yet different from, the sites they are attempting to imitate. They are similar appearance to authentic websites, making it difficult to distinguish between them, said Rahul Sasi, Founder and CEO, CloudSEK.
CloudSEK also uncovered an ongoing operation involving several phishing domains and Android-based applications. This large-scale campaign lures unwary individuals into a huge gambling scam. Many of these bogus websites impersonate CoinEgg — a legitimate UK-based cryptocurrency trading platform.
“We estimate that threat actors have defrauded victims…
