By James Davis
The Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) based in Califonia has released a list of 17 websites accused of defrauding investors. DFPI issued a similar list in June warning against 25 digital currency platforms. The agency claims that these websites primarily target residents.
As per the latest warnings, most websites imitate the world’s famous legitimate virtual asset services providers like Uniswap and Wintermute. Some of the fraud entities listed by DFPI include Yong Ying Global Investment Firm, Trade 1960, TeleTrade Options, Unison FX, and Tosal Markets Limited, among others.
The warnings stemmed from several California residents’ complaints to the DFPI. The residents say that the fraudsters promised lucrative profits from their investments. Instead, according to the agency’s report, many lost funds to the Ponzi schemes ranging between $2500 to over $1.5 million.
How Fraudsters Contact Their Victims
Usually, fraudsters reach out to innocent investors through social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Whatsapp. These bad actors then fake romantic interests to win the investors’ trust. Other strategies used by these scammers include impersonation and outright phishing.
As a result of these developments, the DFPI urged the public to practice caution before responding to any too-good-to-be-true investment offering on social media. The agency added that the fraudsters would likely be more active during this holiday season, targeting lonely people.
Scammers mostly target older people because they know they are more trusting than young individuals and assume they have more money. In this case, the bad actors contact their targets, informing them of winning prizes, and the victims are defrauded under the guise of paying processing fees.
2022 Saw Increased Cases of Digital Asset Fraud
Since the beginning of 2022, virtual asset scammers have been on a wild rampage, robbing victims of billions of dollars. Their fraudulent activities have attracted the interest of US law enforcement agencies like the Department of Justice and the FBI. Both have promised to hunt down every fraudster in the country.
According to a report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, from January 2022 to December 1st, crypto investors lost a collective of $2.8 billion to scammers. The figure comes from over 110,000 scam tokens deployed by fraudsters in that year.