
What makes things difficult
Is knowing the difference between crypto fakes and crypto.
Both offer much the same product.
European cops arrested 15 suspected scammers and shut down a multi-country network of call centers selling fake cryptocurrency that law enforcement said stole upwards of hundreds of million euros from victims. The scammers tricked their victims into investing large sums of money into fake cryptocurrency schemes according to …
There is actually a difference. When a crypto bro sells magic beans, the buyer at least receives them and can potentially dodge being a victim by selling them to someone else. Only the final bag holder is truly scammed. Fake crypto scammers promise you magic beans, but the buyer is always the one being scammed.
Ironically, this means fake sellers generate fewer scams than real ones.
Okay so any bit helps, but it kind of feels like they entered a zoo of rabid dogs, snagged one that was particularly foamy, and called it case closed. 'Roight then! That's all, sorted innit?'
It sounds like the only difference between this and other crypto schemes is that they didn't actually bother to make their own worthless ponzi coin. Which would have been easy enough (it's trivial to roll your own using existing tools), so I'm surprised they didn't bother. Then they'd have been perfectly legit as far as crypto goes.
Crypto is an investment like any other investment. In that there is inherent risk and bad shit can happen.
A lot of people claim not to "gamble" with investments and yet they will probably have a savngs account or pension that accrues it's interest from someone else gambling on your behalf.
Quite a lot of pension pots have a certain percentage of the portfolio in crypto these days...there's a good chance that if you hold a pension, you're already investing in crypto to some extent whether you like it or not.
What sucks about this though is that the 50%+ annual returns from crypto don't get handed back to you, you get your 7-8% that they guarantee and the fund gets to keep the rest because they know you won't ever check to see how the portfolio is diversified or complain.
Which part of "Hey! Idiots! Come and give me your money!" is illegal though?
The fraud part? On the one hand, we have SBF awaiting a fraud trial for scamming sophisticated investors out of billions. On the other, we have organised crime groups like these running boiler rooms to scam unsophisticated investors out of billions. They're also now awaiting prosecution for fraud.
In the middle, we have police and other fraud reporting lines listening to thousands of desperate people calling in to report they've been scammed out of money they couldn't really afford to lose, with virtually no possibility they'll ever see that money again, or be compensated. That will have resulted in probably hundreds of suicides, relationship breakdowns, or just going from dreams to nightmares. And the media's been a part of the pumping operation reporting on the easy money to be made from crypto.
So sure, there's an element of P.T.Barnum to it, but there's also been a lot of very real harm done to people by slick scams like these. I've had a neighbour asking me to sit in on a presentation they were given by one promising to invest their retirement savings in crypto. I pointed out the risks, and sat with them while they reported it to one of the fraud action lines. It was sad to see their reaction.
I've quit all of this, it's just become crapto currency these days, originally it was a great idea, just a little technical entertainment when you understood how it was working. But these days it's just become a slick little criminal entertainment, delivered to everyone's phone and email address.
> desperate people calling in to report they've been scammed out of money they couldn't really afford to lose
Who gives this money to people that just ask for it though? If you really can't afford to lose it, don't invest your money in Mike from the pub. Put it in the bank, speak to a financial adviser, speak to your friends, hedge your bets.
Maybe even find out what the thing you're investing in is and how it works, but maybe that's asking too much.
Who gives this money to people that just ask for it though? If you really can't afford to lose it, don't invest your money in Mike from the pub. Put it in the bank, speak to a financial adviser, speak to your friends, hedge your bets.
The problem with a lot of these scams are people are conned into thinking they're investing in 'banks' like FTX, and they're listening to or watching slick presentations from 'financial advisers'. Often they'll be hooked with a bit of spam using social engineering and spearfishing, but they may also be introduced by 'friends' who've also invested. Same thing happens with lots of other frauds like ponzi and pyramid schemes.
I'm sure that must have happened but I didn't get any sense from the article of what the fraud was besides "please invest in my yet-another-crypto-token". Do we know what it was?
To an extent, you don't really need to. Or if you're a YT user, there's usually plenty of examples to chose from in comments on videos. There'll be an OT post about how someone just wants to share this wonderful opportunity they've found, followed by a dozen or so replies from other people saying how great it is. If you follow the link, you'll find a pitch site promising you the moon on a stick. They'll often have quotes, news reports, graphs and graphics setting the hook.
Then they're usually ponzi schemes, so you only need to invest a small amount to get started. Your account will grow from new money being collected, then there'll be pressure to invest more because you're getting such a great return, or you should be buying the dip etc. Then the mark discovers they can't cash out, and their money is gone. So basically FTX in micro.