The UK national police project, named ActionFraud, has revealed that scammers have swindled more than £2 million ($2.54 million) from the citizens of the UK in a matter of only two months through cryptocurrency related fraud.
The estimate has been made based on 203 instances of reported cryptocurrency frauds. Most of the fraudsters used social media platforms to propagate their Ponzi schemes that invariably guaranteed to make someone rich in a short time.
According to the UK police department, the average losses realized by the UK citizens were approximately £11,000 (~$13,000). Dubious mining or trading schemes were the most popular methods employed to steal money.
Mining is a method employed to confirm transactions between two parties and in return get rewarded in the form of Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins (Ethereum, etc.). By advertising fake mining contracts, scammers swindle money. This is in addition to the popular cryptojacking method, which involves running mining malwares without authorization from the users of the system.
According to the ActionFraud project,
Fraudsters will convince victims to sign up to cryptocurrency investment websites and to part with their personal details such as credit card details and driving licences to open a trading account. The victim will then make an initial minimum deposit, after which the fraudster will call them to persuade them to invest again in order to achieve a greater profit.
Over the past two months, Britons have filed roughly 203 cases with the ActionFraud project at the national cybercrime reporting center. National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which comes under the London Police department, has initiated the plan.
It’s vital for anyone who invests or is thinking of investing in cryptocurrencies to thoroughly research the company they are choosing to invest with.
ActionFraud director Pauline Smith said,
The statistics show that opportunistic fraudsters are taking advantage of this market, offering investments in cryptocurrencies and using every trick in the book to defraud unsuspecting victims.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has also warned the public about a crypto trading related fraud, including another this week from a so-called duplicate firm Fair Oaks Crypto.
