Scammers impersonating Ukrainian crypto traders have defrauded an online business man in the country of $250,000 after contacting him over a business transaction.
Sources said the transaction started in May 2024. But as the deal turned sour, fake police men came into the picture to threaten him online of serious harm having committed crimes against the Ukrainian state through his business activity that border on treason and collaboration with Russia. The fake police officers were able to convince the business man to transfer $250,000 in USDT to facilitate the dropping of the charges and put an end to the harassment. The business man was threatened with long-term imprisonment should he be found guilty.
The scammers were said to have received the booty recently through an unnamed exchange. But it was learnt that the business man supposedly contacted the Ukrainian police after he sent the funds and they have swung into action.
Also, the Ukrainian police were reportedly able to trace the stolen crypto assets to four suspects and traced their real-time locations. During this raid, they found bank cards, computers, mobile phones, luxury cars, fake press credentials, ammunition and nearly $7,000 in cash.
The crypto scam was said to be a new strain of scams being perpetrated by bad actors in the crypto industry. The impersonation of police authorities to harass victims opens a new chapter in the recorded cases of crypto scamming schemes.
Popular crypto scams include pig butchering, phishing, rug pulls and exit scams. Pig Butchering got its name from a South Korean term that describes the slow methodology used in killing pigs. The scam involves building a long-term relationship with the proposed victim which often takes a romantic turn. After a fake sense of security has been attained by the victim, he or she is lured to invest in a fraudulent investment scheme where they lose all the money they invested.
Phishing entails using cloned sites or emails to obtain sensitive information like passwords and login details. It is a popular technique also used in internet fraud and Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams. Rug pulls are mostly orchestrated by developers of a crypto project. They float a crypto project as genuine and make away with investor funds when enough money has been invested into the project.
It was reported that the crypto industry lost nearly $350 million worth of crypto assets to scammers last month.
