FBI Warned That COVID-19 Scammers Are Targeting Crypto Holders

[Henri Cartier]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned Monday that fraudsters are about to unleash a surge of coronavirus cryptocurrency scams. Fraudsters are leveraging increased fear and uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic to steal your money and launder it through the complex cryptocurrency ecosystem.

FBI said that they are targeting people of all ages by various fraud schemes like Blackmail attempts by Threatening emails asking for personal information and demand payment in bitcoin to release that information. Also, they blackmail that they infect you and/or your family with coronavirus unless payment is sent to a Bitcoin wallet.

Work from home scams posing as remote workers collecting “donations” via email and safety equipment vendors working beyond established e-commerce, or even as “charities” that take cryptocurrency.

Although there are legitimate charities, investment platforms, and e-commerce sites that accept payment in cryptocurrency, the pressure to use a virtual currency should be considered a significant red flag.

FBI has given the following tips to protect yourself from frauds -

• Verify that a vendor/charity is legitimate and accepts cryptocurrency before sending payments/donations.
• Conduct extensive research on potential investment opportunities.
• Do not use your personal bank accounts for a work-from-home business-related activity or provide your bank account information to someone who is not named on the account.
• Contact law enforcement before paying out blackmail and/or extortion attempts and before converting your money into cryptocurrency to pay them.

This warning is the largest government level warning about COVID-19 Crypto Scams as the number of Scams has increased a lot around the globe. Other Crypto Scams related to the coronavirus are:

• Thieves have stolen $2 million falsely selling pandemic essentials such as face masks, hand sanitizer, and medication.
• U.K. residents are being warned against scammers claiming to offer information on locals infected with coronavirus for payments in Bitcoin.

>> Chainalysis research indicates that Coronavirus has erased 33% of Crypto Scammers' Revenue.


Scammers are taking advantage of this critical pandemic situation also. In this serious situation, we all should be careful and protect ourselves from frauds. I am sharing this warning to know how scammers can take advantage of the situation and scam us. We should be aware of it!


Source:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-expects-a-rise-in-scams-involving-cryptocurrency-related-to-the-covid-19-pandemic
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fbi-warns-covid-19-scammers-040000772.html
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/covid-19-cryptocurrency-scams
 

[cryptoaddictchie]

Scammers are taking advantage of this critical pandemic situation also. In this serious situation, we all should be careful and protect ourselves from frauds. I am sharing this warning to know how scammers can take advantage of the situation and scam us. We should be aware of it!

Thanks for sharing but these kind of fraud activity using covid-19 will not end as long as they can seize opportunity to earn money from people who arent taking any cautious. But to be honest, only few people can fall on this scheme if they knew how to keep away from stranger's call. Of course crypto space will be an easy way to do that without using any force by introducing professional touch on their created domain or any tool to make their platform a realistic one.

_{Best advise is avoid anything regarding covid19 platform when regards to donation, investment or transaction.}

[joniboini]

_{Best advise is avoid anything regarding covid19 platform when regards to donation, investment or transaction.}

I'm pretty sure people know that investment on COVID19 is pretty shady, but some donation programs are legit. I believe it is not that hard to distinguish the fake and the real one.

Avoiding them altogether would decrease the number of funds for helping people in dire need. I bet any government bodies won't suggest something like that. Especially when they can't solve it on their own.

[Upgrade00]

Although there are legitimate charities, investment platforms, and e-commerce sites that accept payment in cryptocurrency, the pressure to use a virtual currency should be considered a significant red flag.

Also if you are contacted through an unsolicited message, via email or any other channel by an entity claiming to be a charity organization, this should trigger a significant red flag. Local charities shouldn't have the information to be able to reach out to people personally.

Protect your internet activity. Be mindful or how you submit contact information to various sites, like email, phone number or KYC documents. Scammers can follow your online track and plan how best to attack you.

Also, if contacted by a possible scammer, don't panic, assess the situation and seek legal advice if necessary.

[DdmrDdmr]

Additionally, sextortion attempts are surging again, in light of there being so many people confined to their homes, and playing with the odds being higher for people watching porn. Yesterday in Spain, during the daily government/institutional press conference on the situation of the Corinavirus, the police force issued a warning concerning these practices (sextortion, not watching porn), demanding something like a 1500$ equivalent in BTC.

There was an additional warning during the press conference (in Spain) on Covid-related scams, related to false offers of material (masks, gloves and so forth), as well as emails with malicious links to information on the matter.

[OgNasty]

Scammers should probably search for easier targets. Crypto users have been crawling through the mud with the lowest of the low for quite some time now.

[squatter]

Scammers should probably search for easier targets. Crypto users have been crawling through the mud with the lowest of the low for quite some time now.

New users are easy marks. As long as Bitcoin keeps gaining in adoption, there is always an endless stream of new users waiting to be scammed. It often takes a real financial loss before users wise up and develop a radar for this.

[tbct_mt2]

Scammers should probably search for easier targets. Crypto users have been crawling through the mud with the lowest of the low for quite some time now.

Scammers only can attack and steal money from naive and lazy crypto users but it is hilarious to see scammers always make their traps operate successfully and steal significant amount of money from crypto users, not only from newbies.

Honestly, before I saw warnings on such problems (weeks before the FBI warning) I don't care to use any app relates to COVID-19. Why do I have to use such apps to trace infected people. Without such potential dangerous apps, I can still protect myself if I practice social distancing and personal hygiene well.

[jseverson]

New users are easy marks. As long as Bitcoin keeps gaining in adoption, there is always an endless stream of new users waiting to be scammed. It often takes a real financial loss before users wise up and develop a radar for this.

What's funny is the scams specified by the FBI aren't even targeted towards new users:

Although there are legitimate charities, investment platforms, and e-commerce sites that accept payment in cryptocurrency, pressure to use a virtual currency should be considered a significant red flag.

They're just going for their usual targets with their usual methods but are involving crypto one way or another.

[20kevin20]

I wish some government body had taken online scams & malware way more seriously.. these scams are everywhere and it's quite easy to take them down fast enough when you have the power in your hands. I can't even recall how many times I've seen scams wandering around whenever I looked up something on Google or different other websites. If there was a little team out there to help with taking them all down 24/7, the number of scams would have decreased long ago.

Warnings could've been sent out to the public months/weeks ago when the panic was on an ATH and everyone was hoarding for masks. But hey, unless it touches their name/relative bodies/interests, that's just not gonna happen..

~

Honestly, before I saw warnings on such problems (weeks before the FBI warning) I don't care to use any app relates to COVID-19. Why do I have to use such apps to trace infected people. Without such potential dangerous apps, I can still protect myself if I practice social distancing and personal hygiene well.

Because that's how the future looks like, man.. it's the new kind of hate, but this time we're going to start hating and feeling a disgust for anyone who has been infected with the virus..

I mean, I said it from the start that this is the path we're apparently taking and some of my friends called me crazy but now it's making waves already through the news:

• https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/miscellaneous/europe-prepares-mobile-apps-to-track-people-infected-with-coronavirus/
• https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-norway-virus-tracker-app.html
• https://www.msn.com/en-in/finance/news/india-virus-track-app-gets-50-million-users-amid-privacy-concerns/ar-BB12J91U

Subconsciously, as you download this app and constantly get alerted for getting close to an infected person, there's going to be an "alarm" developed in your mind after a while that'll trigger a different behavior whenever you're going to have to make contact with one of the infected.

[stompix]

Scammers should probably search for easier targets. Crypto users have been crawling through the mud with the lowest of the low for quite some time now.

They are not targeting crypto holders directly.
Most of these scams are randomly picking victims (like the sextortion mail DdmrDdmr mentioned) but they are also giving them detailed information on how to purchase and send BTC. I doubt those would be necessary if you target crypto users.

From the FBI warning:

Contact law enforcement before paying out blackmail and/or extortion attempts and before converting your money into cryptocurrency to pay them.

Probably most of the scammed users never touched cryptos before, but since the deal was simply to good, or the scammers were selling stuff that was not available anywhere like ffp3 masks so they followed the instructions, bought the coins, sent them...and...

One interesting thing in the coindesk article:

So far, more than 90 percent of the scam crypto transactions were received in tether (USDT), 5 percent in bitcoin (BTC), 2 percent in ether (ETH) and a small amount in “a wide breadth” of other cryptocurrencies.

So, about time we have some talk about how "tether" is used to do...bad things more than bitcoin! 

[skiorf]

Why are there still many bad people who take advantage of this catastrophic state, so that they can blackmail others without thinking that they will be infected too.

Many fake websites that they spread to trap people who are looking for info about Covid-19. collateral requested by crypto payment is also quite a lot. especially if disguised as an act of donation which will certainly deceive many people.

A few tips from the FBI will probably help to avoid scammers, and most importantly have to stay alert.

[tvplus006]

...Scammers are taking advantage of this critical pandemic situation also. In this serious situation, we all should be careful and protect ourselves from frauds. I am sharing this warning to know how scammers can take advantage of the situation and scam us. We should be aware of it!..

Scammers used previously and will continue to use any information occasion in the future. And we saw them on our forum even before the FBI alerted us. In the "Scam Accusations" section, there is a thread:  "All Covid-19 Scam Related Threads", already posted 17 different scams related to COVID-19.

[Harlot]

_{Best advise is avoid anything regarding covid19 platform when regards to donation, investment or transaction.}

I'm pretty sure people know that investment on COVID19 is pretty shady, but some donation programs are legit. I believe it is not that hard to distinguish the fake and the real one.

Avoiding them altogether would decrease the number of funds for helping people in dire need. I bet any government bodies won't suggest something like that. Especially when they can't solve it on their own.

We can't really be complacent right now since this is really a serious matter that even WHO and Interpol have guidelines regarding COVID-19 related scams, this only mean that there are already a lot of victims because of the use of the current pandemic with such investment schemes. What would be more appropriate for this agencies who are already aware of the scams happening is to blacklist this sites in order to lessen the chances of them having new victims, I know that they have the power to do that and instead of just reminding people about the current scams happening I think this will be a better solution overall.

[KrisAlex18]

I have read about this article before and this is really disappointing because of what are happening right now, even though the pandemic virus is still existing around the world, the scammers and hackers won't stop from it. They will still try their best just to steal money and account of innocent people so always be careful because all can be possible of being scammed, always be careful on talking to someone else, do not trust so easily especially when you are talking about money because money is power, money controls the situation.

You may use this link to read more about the news: https://cryptorising.news/fbi-warns-covid-19-scammers-are-targeting-crypto-holders/

Scammers should probably search for easier targets. Crypto users have been crawling through the mud with the lowest of the low for quite some time now.

Scammers only can attack and steal money from naive and lazy crypto users but it is hilarious to see scammers always make their traps operate successfully and steal significant amount of money from crypto users, not only from newbies.

I don't think so, hackers are really professional, they are really good in hacking system, they can even still some big companies with high data security, so even though you are not naive or even lazy, if you will face professional hackers then your account can still be hacked.

[Pmalek]

I wish some government body had taken online scams & malware way more seriously.. these scams are everywhere and it's quite easy to take them down fast enough when you have the power in your hands. I can't even recall how many times I've seen scams wandering around whenever I looked up something on Google or different other websites. If there was a little team out there to help with taking them all down 24/7, the number of scams would have decreased long ago.

I don't think a "little team" would be able to handle the amount of fraud that is circulating all over the Internet. The agencies simply don't have the resources or the time to investigate everything. They would rather go for the big players, if they can.

Those sextortion emails for example. Only a small part of it is documented. The police needs statements and claims by the victims. Most of the victims of this particular scam probably don't want to go public. Why would you pay an extortionist money to delete some footage of you? Probably because you believe that their might be such footage. They will probably take the loss rather than making their jerk off routines known.