Social Engineering Scheme: Impersonating Police

[Pmalek]

Here is an impersonation scam that the Founder & CEO of Coincards posted on his X profile. I did a quick search and haven’t seen anyone post about this yet. I apologize if they did.

It's a social engineering scheme.
The scammer knew a lot about the guy and spoofed a real number of an RCMP office (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
He received a call from North Vancouver RCMP, the real detachment number. The person on the phone claimed that they arrested a "Xin Li" who had in his possession a USB with personal information of the Coincards CEO (copies of passport and driver's license, phone number, email, seed phrases, and references to Ledger & Trezor).

The fake "police constable" was on the hunt for information on his potential victim. One of the things he wanted was the Telegram username. He told the CEO that he would send him a secure download link from which he could download the documents recovered from Xin Li. One thing the CEO noticed was that the man he was talking to had a British accent.

This call lasted around 45 minutes. When it ended, "Trezor" called him almost immediately. However, the Trezor rep sounded almost identical to the RCMP constable. The Trezor rep told him that his seeds might be compromised and that he shouldn't connect or unlock his device. He also told him that he needs to update his firmware. This is, no doubt, when he is supposed to send the scammers his recovery phrase. The Trezor representative made an insane claim that Coincover can recover seed phrases from anyone who has used Trezor Suite.

To cut the story short, he received an email from the "RCMP officer" and noticed that the address looked similar, but it was slightly wrong. The CEO called RCMP North Vancouver himself and found out that the calls were fake, and that the "constable" who called him doesn't exist.

The moral of the story is to stop and think. Don't rush and make mistakes. Regardless of how much information someone may have on you and how believable they seem, they might have obtained it illegally, and it could be a scam. Verify everything yourself and never send anyone your seeds, keys, or personal information.


Source:
https://x.com/astupidmoose/status/2109766012321358075

[stadus]

This is actually a growing problem as the number of scams and the total amount of money lost to them continue to increase.

According to the FBI report, in the span of 1 year and 7 months the total amount lost has already reached billions of dollars.
So although there have been reports and warnings about this, it seems that people still easily fall for these scams.

And this is not specifically about police impersonation, but government authority impersonation scams in general.

https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260917

Between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received nearly 61,000 complaints of law enforcement or government impersonation scams, with losses totaling more than $1.6 billion.

[albon]

The victim should have suspected something was wrong when he got a call from someone claiming to be a Trezor representative, because Trezor doesn't contact people first by phone/email to ask them to update anything or tell them their seed phrases may be at risk.

This means the first caller, claiming to be a police officer was a scammer. Somehow, he got the victim's phone number and used social engineering to make him trust him. If the victim had contacted the RCMP using the official number after the first call, he would have known that the caller was fake and that both calls seemed to be part of the same scam.

This story teaches us to NOT trust people quickly or believe everything people tell us and we should check things ourselves first.

[Hatchy]

The moral of the story is to stop and think. Don't rush and make mistakes. Regardless of how much information someone may have on you and how believable they seem, they might have obtained it illegally, and it could be a scam. Verify everything yourself and never send anyone your seeds, keys, or personal information.

Once again, don't trust, verify. Many people still fall for these kinds of scams, and honestly, I find it hard to understand why. Trezor called you directly on your phone, yet you didn't stop to question why they would call you in the first place. I keep saying that sometimes, we are the cause of our own problems. Many people ignore the little warning signs, perhaps out of fear that the call might be real, and end up becoming victims of scams. Hardware wallet companies have no reason to call you about your wallet. Receiving such a call should already be a red flag and a warning that you might be a target. Of course, no one is above making mistakes, but many of these mistakes can be avoided if we pay attention to the warning signs.

[Coyster]

Pmalek have you read mocacinno's story? It is so similar to this one in your OP, good thing that neither of them fell for the scam in the end: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5590968.msg67032861#msg67032861
I consider this kind of social enginnering scheme to be more "sophisticated" than many others you read in the community. The scammers actually put in a lot of work to get information about their targets, sometimes even attaching fake police case numbers and details that could catch many people off guard, and cause them to divulge sensitive information.

The rule of thumb remains the same though, irrespective how believable any story seems, never share your seed phrase with anyone, nor click links shared to you by any third party, it could most likely be a phishing link.

[Pmalek]

The victim should have suspected something was wrong when he got a call from someone claiming to be a Trezor representative, because Trezor doesn't contact people first by phone/email to ask them to update anything or tell them their seed phrases may be at risk.

I agree. Plus the fact that the second call came almost immediately after the first one was a big mistake by the scammer and impersonator. He was too impatient and in too much hurry to go slower. He smelled the money. The first call from the RCMP could have been handled better. One thing immediately springs to mind but I am not going to mention it publicly so as not to give anyone any ideas. The CEO's wife also had an important role, helping him realize that he is being scammed.

Pmalek have you read mocacinno's story? It is so similar to this one in your OP, good thing that neither of them fell for the scam in the end: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5590968.msg67032861#msg67032861

I didn't hear about mocacinno story. Scary stuff and very similar to this one.

[promise444c5]

Scammers are evolving every single day

Pmalek have you read mocacinno's story? It is so similar to this one in your OP, good thing that neither of them fell for the scam in the end: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5590968.msg67032861#msg67032861

I didn't hear about mocacinno story. Scary stuff and very similar to this one.

I think it might be the new trending format for scamming crypto owners  or both are operating under same network..

Another forum  user posted something similar not too long after  mocacinno shared what he experienced[cant find the thread], yours is probably the third report that I’ve seen with almost identical pattern.

[Pmalek]

I think it might be the new trending format for scamming crypto owners or both are operating under same network..

What I don't understand is why the scammer made that crazy claim that Coincover can recover seed phrases that were previously "used" in Trezor Suite. They weren't talking with an unknown newbie who doesn't know how non-custodial services work but with a founder and CEO of a crypto service. Maybe he is not an expert who knows everything, but he knows how ridiculous that sounds at least.

[Coyster]

They weren't talking with an unknown newbie who doesn't know how non-custodial services work but with a founder and CEO of a crypto service. Maybe he is not an expert who knows everything, but he knows how ridiculous that sounds at least.

They didn't think that through, anybody who has been in the crypto industry for sometime would know that the claim is flat out bullshit. I guess they thought their potential victim wouldn't have sufficient time to process that information, considering the amount of data they had on him, plus the spoofed police number.

What's most worrying is that calls like this are quite common, just check the comment section on that X post, and you'd read from so many people that they have also been on the receiving end of a similar call from scammers. And this is all caused by KYC data breaches. It is even better to receive these scam calls, than to have people knocking at your door, with a $5 wrench in hand.

[promise444c5]

I think it might be the new trending format for scamming crypto owners or both are operating under same network..

What I don't understand is why the scammer made that crazy claim that Coincover can recover seed phrases that were previously "used" in Trezor Suite. They weren't talking with an unknown newbie who doesn't know how non-custodial services work but with a founder and CEO of a crypto service. Maybe he is not an expert who knows everything, but he knows how ridiculous that sounds at least.

lol.. could have made a bit of sense if it was ledger because Coincover seem to be part of the third parties which ledger claimed they would be hold a fragment of recovery seed..

I agree with Coyster, they probably thought the CEO wouldn’t really process that particular statement with the kind of approach they used.

On a normal day some folks would have easily fall for that..

Seriously people need to relax a bit and process every single data clearly whenever they find themselves in situations like these.

[rohang]

Similar thing has been happening alot in india too.

scammer would video call you on whatsapp , they will be sitting in full police attire on a govt looking desk with wall background just like real high ranking police has.

THey will scare you about some random crime and put u in 'digital arrest', telling you cant call or contact anyone. Then ofcourse they will threaten and coerce you to transfer large sums of money to them as a bribe.

Many experienced people got scammed like this , very smart scammers these days

[UserU]

Similar thing has been happening alot in india too.

scammer would video call you on whatsapp , they will be sitting in full police attire on a govt looking desk with wall background just like real high ranking police has.

THey will scare you about some random crime and put u in 'digital arrest', telling you cant call or contact anyone. Then ofcourse they will threaten and coerce you to transfer large sums of money to them as a bribe.

Many experienced people got scammed like this , very smart scammers these days

Wait, they evolved?

I usually watch those scambaiting videos and they would only speak through voice and never through video call.

[rohang]

Similar thing has been happening alot in india too.

scammer would video call you on whatsapp , they will be sitting in full police attire on a govt looking desk with wall background just like real high ranking police has.

THey will scare you about some random crime and put u in 'digital arrest', telling you cant call or contact anyone. Then ofcourse they will threaten and coerce you to transfer large sums of money to them as a bribe.

Many experienced people got scammed like this , very smart scammers these days

Wait, they evolved?

I usually watch those scambaiting videos and they would only speak through voice and never through video call.

Yea its on a whole another level now. They created high rank police officer office rooms etc to look legit on the call. Even some retired cops were scammed in this way.

I had died down now after govt started putting warnings about this 'digital arrest' scam everywhere. But they got many many people like this

[UserU]

Yea its on a whole another level now. They created high rank police officer office rooms etc to look legit on the call. Even some retired cops were scammed in this way.

I had died down now after govt started putting warnings about this 'digital arrest' scam everywhere. But they got many many people like this

Yikes, and the police there are not even doing much despite those raids going on.

Can't really blame those victims since they (especially the elderly) are pressured and often unsupervised. Really scary.

[Coyster]

I had died down now after govt started putting warnings about this 'digital arrest' scam everywhere. But they got many many people like this

I've done a quick search and the numbers beggars believe, we are talking about millions of dollars in losses from this scam in India just from 2025 up until now. Why would anybody agree to pay a "bribe" when they know they haven't committed any crime, i don't just get it.

And even if they did commit a crime, do they believe that the police would tell them about it over the phone, or pull up in their homes and arrest them. The more i try to wrap my head around it, the more i get confused. It is also illegal for law enforcement to take bribes, that in itself is another red flag, and there are just so many.

[rohang]

I had died down now after govt started putting warnings about this 'digital arrest' scam everywhere. But they got many many people like this

I've done a quick search and the numbers beggars believe, we are talking about millions of dollars in losses from this scam in India just from 2025 up until now. Why would anybody agree to pay a "bribe" when they know they haven't committed any crime, i don't just get it.

And even if they did commit a crime, do they believe that the police would tell them about it over the phone, or pull up in their homes and arrest them. The more i try to wrap my head around it, the more i get confused. It is also illegal for law enforcement to take bribes, that in itself is another red flag, and there are just so many.

There are many reasons, and these scammers were very smart.

High networth individuals were the main targets, especially those who had enriched themselves illegally.

They had forged documents ready, stuff like arrest warrants, fake FIR copies etc.

In the beginning when it was new,  people fell to this very easily.
We are talking rich but old 60-70 year olds with limited knowledge of modern world. To them it was high ranking police officers on the call. It wasnt always worded as a bribe, more like bail money or something that would be returned if they were proven innocent