A new cryptocurrency scam has cost many Canadians and Americans hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Nova Scotia Securities Commission warned Monday.
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The procedure of this “pig slaughtering” scheme is primarily aimed at building a relationship of trust with the victim. The latter is initially requested via SMS, email or social networks.
Once the relationship is in full swing, the scammer persuades the victim to invest in cryptocurrency. After some time, he sends her a fake “bank statement” with impressive profits. This part of the scheme is called “pig fattening” and is designed to convince the victim to invest even more money.
When the victim tries to withdraw funds from their crypto account, the scammer tells them they need to pay taxes or fees to complete this transaction, but ends up disappearing.
In addition, the scammer manages to gain access to the victim’s banking details by asking them to install commercial applications that allow them to steal even more money from the victim.
Eventually the scam ends when the scammer poses as someone else and tells her that she can get her money back if she pays a fee. “This is known as clawback fraud and re-victimizes the original victim,” the Nova Scotia Securities Commission said in a statement.
In most cases, victims of this type of scam never get their money back.
“While there are always scammers inventing new schemes, these so-called ‘pig fight’ cryptocurrency asset scams are rampant and claim many victims, many at very high losses,” said Commission President Paul Radford.
The latter also recalled that since 2021 in North America more than a billion dollars have been lost through this type of fraud.
The Nova Scotia Securities Commission added that the best way to protect yourself from this type of scam is to know how to spot it in order to avoid it.