People of Singapore became the target to cryptocurrency scammers, ending up losing a total sum of $78,000 between September and November 2018. The scammers used a variety of strategies to lure the people which involved false information about fake investments in crypto. The scammers also used the faces of famous personalities of Singapore to make the scams more believable.
According to the reports by Straits Times, the scam platform, which has not been named in the report, is advertised online using various paid adverts looking like articles. This paid adverts also feature celebrities from Singapore who singing praises for the platform. The advertisements direct the visitors to other sites. These landing pages then encourage and request the users to give a call if they are interested in investing in bitcoin. They also try to show these investments in Bitcoin as totally secure, risk-free, and big returns in the future.
According to the Singapore authorities, these schemes were being carried out from outside Singapore and they were not regulated by the country’s financial regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in any way. This poses an even greater risk to investors as they cannot take a legal recourse for such scams.
Individuals with any further information on this or any other similar scam are being encouraged to contact the Singapore authorities on a police hotline (1800-255-0000).
The claims of the Singapore police authorities that these scams are being carried out from outside the country are not yet verified. The scammers, whether domestic or not, have picked the country for its rapidly growing interest in digital assets.
