Singapore Police Say Crypto-Related Crimes Keep Rising across the Country

[7788bitcoin]

When the popularity of cryptocurrency rises naturally the crime rate also increases along with it. You need to be careful which sites you visit when you are storing your coins in a wallet which is always connected to the internet and it is not clear how they fell to the scams. It is either they have invested in scam sites and doubling scams, other than that it is not clear about how $29 millions are lost to criminals.

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[Vishnu.Reang]

This is highly expected. Not just in Singapore, but I expect that it will do the same in other countries. As cryptocurrencies are already trending right now, it is also an opportunity for criminals to use this path rather than the traditional way in committing online crime.

That may be true. But there are limitations in using cryptocurrency for these fraudulent activities. First issue is the limited liquidity for various cryptocurrencies. It is not very easy to convert cryptocurrencies to fiat cash, and that too anonymously. And this is one of the primary reasons why criminals prefer various fiat options instead of cryptocurrency for their activities. But the mainstream media would like to concentrate on the few instances where cryptocurrencies are used for scams.

[Nunoluck]

And how much is fiat related crime which is more complicated?. In my opinion inflation itself is a crime because it steal value from people. I think one of factors that caused it is because many people are live in poor or didn't have good job with good salary. It is not because of the cryptocurrency but it is because of the human.

[fiulpro]

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019.

Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

This is just one in the list. We have to understand that crimes are increasing no doubt but we have to understand that it's not just crimes and frauds related to Cryptos! The government is just trying to highlight this so that in the future they can dominate the market indirectly. This is kind of like a "silent war".

- These kinds of news 🗞️ is for sure manipulative, as long as you do not give the percentage of crimes related to the fiat etc, you should not put all the blame on cryptocurrencies.

- Crimes are untraceable, easier, more common in fiat. Everyone is well aware of that but unfortunately they get ignored since government brain washes people and lead them to believe that what they are doing or holding torch for is right.

Think for yourself.
-You can track all the crypto transactions
-Its harder to buy crypto as compared to money
-A full on investigation can be carried out much easily
Etc..

[avikz]

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019.

Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

This statement is true in the global context as well. Crypto related cyber crimes are at all time high. Many corporates were affected by the ransomware attack since last year. There was a recent attack on an American pipeline where again bitcoin was paid to the scammers. It seems majority of the cyber crimes are happening and bitcoin is inevitably involved in that. These incidents are earning a bad name for bitcoin for sure. The pseudo anonymity has indeed granted a power to the scammers!

[ilovealtcoins]

Singapore is a country that allows startups to raise ICOs. Startup projects are high risk so it is normal for complaints to take place. Even countries in Southeast Asia have experienced crypto-related scams.
The tricks of criminals are to take advantage of people's greed and ignorance to entice investments into cryptocurrency projects. The money raised is usually crypto so it is not possible to recover the money the crimin
have scammed.

[stompix]

The figure given here ($28 million) is for the three year duration between 2018 and 2020. That is around $9 million per year. They should compare it with the amount stolen every year through debit card cloning and hacking of bank accounts. I am sure that the amount involved is at least 100 times higher.

Let's start by counting cards and bank accounts first, 400k using bitcoin daily and 500 million using cards, let's compare the numbers of addresses with a balance with the numbers of people owning a card! Damn it's like comparing the murder numbers in Antarctica with Orlando!

Bitcoin-related crime will rise as usage will rise, when you will have a few hundred million people using bitcoins daily and for everything just like cards you will see this skyrocketing, and not proportional for the increase in numbers, even worse than that as the new ones that are getting into cryptos are less and less tech-savvy and far more gullible since 99% of them came for the money, not for the technology. People have to acknowledge that one can't have the advantages of Bitcoins, especially the security against confiscation, and not have criminals trying to profit from it, just as anything it will be exploited by somebody, from knives to cars to cough syrup it's the same.

Getting into the ostrich pose and shouting "what about fiat" won't make it go away!

I think it's safe to say that all sorts of crimes ^{[not just crypto-related]} have been on the rise in the past year or two ^{[due to the overall increase in costs, caused by this ongoing pandemic]} and prior to that, the increase in crimes was mainly due to the fact that a lot of newcomers try to use it for the wrong reason ^[greed] and that always ends in a disaster ^{[their fault]}; Add the adoption rate as well and that number will continue to rise ^{[unfortunately, it's inevitable]}.

I will not be that harsh to say for greed or that greed is a wrong reason.
People will look for profit, everyone does, some indeed fall for Ponzi schemes but there are a lot who get scammed in other ways, there are hundreds of people getting scammed with fake warnings from the IRS, they rush to pay fines to ATMs, people that get tricked by phishing links and many many more.
Probably yeah, the ones tricked by ICOs are the biggest chunk but there are a few who are quite innocent, that buy some coins and then end up downloading the wrong wallet...

Either way, as you say, things will, unfortunately, get only worse!

[worle1bm]

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019.

Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

They just want to counter attack cryptos due to sudden increase of demand among the masses and they need any agenda to spread FUD like cryptos promote crimes? The fiat has been there for years and government is unable to stop such crimes then and the number has been increasing from that time aslo but they never give a single statement against it.Why? Because it is centerlised currency? But still we don't need to worry about such things as crypto will progress even high in these times.

[pawanjain]

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019.

Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

It's quite obvious because the fame of crypto has been increasing quite a lot lately. With the rise of crypto fame the number of scammers would increase as well.
Scammers are finding new ways to scam people and things will only turn out to be worse as crypto is adopted more.
More number of people will try to scam others and this is why it is better to develop the skill of research so that we know what we are doing.
Most of the times it's the lack of knowledge that scammers use as a vulnerability to scam their victims.
If people become more educated on crypto then the number of scams will decreased gradually.

[bryant.coleman]

The figure given here ($28 million) is for the three year duration between 2018 and 2020. That is around $9 million per year. They should compare it with the amount stolen every year through debit card cloning and hacking of bank accounts. I am sure that the amount involved is at least 100 times higher.

Let's start by counting cards and bank accounts first, 400k using bitcoin daily and 500 million using cards, let's compare the numbers of addresses with a balance with the numbers of people owning a card! Damn it's like comparing the murder numbers in Antarctica with Orlando!

Bitcoin-related crime will rise as usage will rise, when you will have a few hundred million people using bitcoins daily and for everything just like cards you will see this skyrocketing, and not proportional for the increase in numbers, even worse than that as the new ones that are getting into cryptos are less and less tech-savvy and far more gullible since 99% of them came for the money, not for the technology. People have to acknowledge that one can't have the advantages of Bitcoins, especially the security against confiscation, and not have criminals trying to profit from it, just as anything it will be exploited by somebody, from knives to cars to cough syrup it's the same.

Getting into the ostrich pose and shouting "what about fiat" won't make it go away!

I am not getting in to ostrich pose. I agree with many of your points and it is a concern that a number of criminals are using Bitcoin. However, my problem is that the cops, as well as the mainstream media want to target only Bitcoin and they don't react in a similar way against crimes involving fiat. Also, I have to disagree with you when you claim that the crimes will skyrocket as more and more people start to use Bitcoin. From what I have seen, it has actually gone down a lot. Back in the early days, there was Hidden Wiki, xDedic, Silk Road, Black Death, Armory and all sort of unwanted businesses, which accounted for a large share of the Bitcoin transactions. Their share have gone down by a lot now. And dark market volumes are declining, despite the expanding user base of Bitcoin.  

[capcaypro]

crypto has started to rise in recent years and become one of the easy ways to earn money so many people are starting to look at it and not only in large countries, small countries have also started to see how crypto can change someone.
of course this also applies to people who want to do evil, such as swindlers and thieves.
they already know about the prosperity of crypto so they twist their brains to do things that are not justified.
in fact this is definitely happening because everyone is not all good of course there is evil one of them is the thief and the fraudster, in the world of crypto a lot of people and their minds are of course various not all good. all you have to do is always be vigilant and don't trust anyone too much here because when it comes to money everyone can be so greedy that they can commit crimes

[isaac_clarke22]

~

Mention "money laundering" one more time.
Authorities think that crimes like money laundering mostly happens using crypto just because it is behind their probation/observation, but they do not even realize how many of those happens using paper money.

[blockman]

I remember one incident that happened in Singapore and was also reported to the authorities and that transaction was related to cryptocurrency. I think the government is taking this seriously and they should remind their people to remain lowkey and if they're doing crypto transactions, they must be vigilant and check every detail that they will do to avoid being a victim of fraudulent activities. I hope that these incidents won't make crypto look bad in their country and won't have that bad impression on other countries too. Because when there are incidents like this, they're only looking to crypto related as if it's the only thing that happens and neglects real world transactions through banks and cash transactions.

[Fortify]

The Singaporean police have reported that cryptocurrency-related crimes have skyrocketed since 2018, and the uptrend does not seem to be slowing down. According to The Straits Times, around 393 reports were made last year amid the coronavirus crisis of cases involving crypto frauds, cheating, among others, which is more than three times the figures of 2019.

Additionally, the authorities pointed out that just 125 complaints were filed with the police, representing another surge from the 15 reported in 2018. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

It's almost inevitable as more inexperienced people get involved with cryptocurrency that it will be abused by scammers. I'm guessing there was also a bit of a stigma, which has since broken down, that Bitcoin only used to be used by criminals and people may not have wanted to "incriminate" or turn attention to themselves by reporting problems to the police. I saw the other day that there were a record number of wallet holders a couple weeks ago, identified by unique wallets having 2 or more transactions with no spends, signalling that people were actually rushing in to buy during the recent dip. Looking at it from the other side, it makes sense for criminals to attack cryptocurrency because it is like stealing cash - very hard to trace where it goes.

[Fredomago]

~

Mention "money laundering" one more time.
Authorities think that crimes like money laundering mostly happens using crypto just because it is behind their probation/observation, but they do not even realize how many of those happens using paper money.

which is very common using paper money, but since crypto is new to them they are really chasing the activities of their people, it's sad that we've seen news like this where negative implication can damaged the usages of this system.

Only time can tell what fate Bitcoin have from that perspectives, if government like Singapore will see it that way, which is more on the negative than looking to the positive side.

Another test of time, crypto supporters are immune to this negative publicity.

[acener]

It isn't surprising because there are so many people who are getting into crypto so I expect that there would be more scammer around to lurk for newbies to be their victim.
It isn't just crypto but also internet prank order on shopping apps any type of scam in the internet is increasing because of the pandemic.
Those who aren't really spending much time in the internet are now using it to avoid being bored because they have nothing else to do.

[Gamerholic]

In my opinion, there is nothing surprising in this. Since the popularity of cryptocurrency causes the growth of the community, for 100 normal people there will definitely be some person with similar inclinations and therefore it is natural that there is a growth, but judging by the numbers, there are not so many such cases. There is dynamics, but in reality it is a drop in the sea of ​​real crime, it is strange that this is emphasized.

[Swordsoffreedom]

~
Furthermore, between 2018 and 2020, criminals stole $29 million during these crypto-related crime cases.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/singapore-police-say-crypto-related-crimes-keep-rising-across-the-country/

People are victims of crypto-related scams due to their complete ignorance. Criminals have embezzled $29 million from 2018 to 2020, It is reprehensible. But every year more amount is scammed by using fiat money, in that case, no one has any complaint.
Newcomers are more likely to be cheated than older ones, I think these crypto-scams will be reduced if the newcomers do not fall into the trap of scammers after being greedy. Before investing/depositing at any online platform, we should be reviewing other's opinions to avoid such incidents. We need to raise awareness among all and take legal action against scam sites.

[Hydrogen]

Its very difficult if not impossible to recover funds or prosecute cyber criminals if they reside in north korea or a nation that does not cooperate with law enforcement. There is a significant extradition barrier to overcome in many cases.

There is a kneejerk reaction whereby people blame crypto for these crimes. This negative trend is unfair in my opinion.

Example, if criminals in russia or china upload ransomware to american systems. And the ransom is paid in crypto. It can be impossible to recover funds due to those nations not cooperating with US law enforcement and having no system whereby criminals can be extradited. These cases could be more complicated and difficult than they might seem on the surface. These circumstances are also not exclusive to crypto. The overwhelming amount of fraud, crime and money laundering occurs in fiat. Crypto based crime is a tiny sliver in contrast.

[arwin100]

In my opinion, there is nothing surprising in this. Since the popularity of cryptocurrency causes the growth of the community, for 100 normal people there will definitely be some person with similar inclinations and therefore it is natural that there is a growth, but judging by the numbers, there are not so many such cases. There is dynamics, but in reality it is a drop in the sea of ​​real crime, it is strange that this is emphasized.

Criminals are just using the fame of thus new introduced opportunity to the newbies thats why they grab the opportunity to fool them by offering them some service which can give a huge profit if they invest their money unto them. This is not new and so expect that the crime will rise since scammers have high guts since they are actually almost traceable if they do crime.