Why do FBI Agents think LinkedIn-based Crypto Scams are a potential threat?

Crypto Scams

Consistently increasing leniency towards the crypto also leads to the threat of potential crypto investment scams and now LinkedIn is also under suspicion

Recently in a report it was stated that according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), crypto investment scams on LinkedIn are becoming a serious threat now for the general public. LinkedIn is known to be a professional network platform and quite popular for its ecosystem and environment where any fraud scheme could turn out to be fatal. 

As the new CNBC report stated, FBI’s special agent in charge for Sacramento, California and San Francisco field offices, Sean Ragan said that crypto schemes on the platform of LinkedIn have become quite common lately. He said that this poses a significant threat on users as there are significant amounts of such fraudulent activities. According to Ragan, including victims of such incidents from past and present both potential numbers are quite huge. 

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Report further noted that these fraudsters try to gain the victim’s trust in the span of several months while offering them ways to make money using the legitimate and trusted crypto investment platforms. The scammers however the victims eventually move cryptocurrencies into a fraud website that is being controlled by some illicit person from far away that later resulted in draining out of all the funds. 

Ragan added that in such cases, victims have no fault while it’s the fault of the fraudster responsible for doing the illicit activity. They make plans for a long time, indulging in thinking how to trap people, victimize them and defraud them. 

In this way they make money after doing such criminal activities and those people who fall for this eventually become victims of all this. While citing an example of such fraud, the report outlined that one investor from Florida named Mei Mei Soe was victimized by such a crypto scam on LinkedIn where she ended up losing her entire savings of $288,000. 

Soe explained the incident to CNBC where a fraudster has asked her if she’s on professional networking platform LinkedIn or if she is looking for any job. She said although she never trusted anyone but she started talking and in shortly he gained her trust. Soe explained that he later told her that she can make money after investing with Crypto.com and when she did the same, she ended up losing her money. 

Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/06/21/why-do-fbi-agents-think-linkedin-based-crypto-scams-are-a-potential-threat/