fraud

The WeChat Security Center has released a governance announcement regarding the crackdown on organizers and promoters of illegal activities such as pyramid schemes and fraud. Recently, some black and gray market accounts have falsely claimed to be "national projects," "ethnic asset unfreezing," and "blockchain virtual currencies, stablecoins," using high returns as bait to lure users into groups and implement pyramid-style "referral" schemes. Subsequently, they induce users to input their account passwords and download fraudulent imitation apps through forged links, ultimately committing property fraud or account theft.WeChat officials stated that once verified, they will take tiered penalties against violating accounts based on the severity of the circumstances, in accordance with relevant laws and platform regulations. This includes banning community functions, restricting feature usage, and permanently banning accounts. They also remind users to be wary of Ponzi schemes that claim to be associated with blockchain but lack substantive technology and applications, and to avoid participating in paying entry fees, developing downlines, and downloading applications from unofficial channels.

According to Caixin, the internal situation of Cambodia's first publicly disclosed telecom fraud base "Zone 8" has been revealed. This "fraud city" is the largest telecom fraud base in Cambodia, capable of accommodating up to 20,000 workers who have been trafficked and forced to engage in online scams, operated by the Cambodian company Legend Innovation.Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic found that the operating company has connections to the Prince Group. Legend Innovation is accused of having links to the Prince Group, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.K., through company phone numbers, board activities, and related business records. Notably, the phone number registered by Legend Innovation appeared in the records of a real estate company that is alleged to belong to the Prince Group's network. The park once had a physical store for Huiwang Payment, allowing personnel to exchange cryptocurrency and cash, while Huiwang Logistics was accused of providing freight services between Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the park.

The social media platform X has filed a lawsuit in London against two British residents, accusing them of defrauding the company through the Creator Revenue Sharing program. X Internet Unlimited Company and X Corp. stated in the lawsuit that Vivek Kumar Sen, Zamyang Sherpa, and unidentified accomplices operated multiple X accounts in collaboration, using likes, retweets, and replies to create a false impression of genuine interaction to increase their share of revenue from the program. X was acquired last year by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI for $33 billion.The plaintiffs named a total of 9 accounts, including @Vivek4real_, @Bitcoin_Teddy, @saylordocs, @TrendingBitcoin, @Kalshibacktest, and @PolyBackTest. X accused several accounts of posting identical or highly similar cryptocurrency-related content within minutes of each other, with one post interval being only 11 seconds; at the same time, these accounts had overlapping financial and identity information, such as the Stripe account associated with @Bitcoin_Teddy being registered under the name "Stefan Mann," while the associated bank account and email both belonged to Sen.X claimed it suffered a loss of £207,384 (approximately $277,000) due to program expenditures and is seeking at least £75,000 (approximately $100,000) for investigation, analysis, remediation, and prevention of further violations.

According to CriptoNoticias, the Spanish Civil Guard and National Police have respectively cracked down on two cryptocurrency-related criminal cases, capturing or identifying a total of 48 individuals involved.Among them, one Ponzi scheme resulted in losses of approximately 327,000 euros for 113 investors; another criminal network implemented fraud through phishing, fake rental advertisements, and other methods, converting illegal gains into cryptocurrency to evade tracking, causing losses exceeding 430,000 euros.

In February, a company that handles debit card transactions for Polymarket's U.S. betting platform reported that fraudsters are flooding the app. Users are linking stolen debit cards to their Polymarket U.S. accounts, attempting to place bets and withdraw funds to clean cards or accounts under their control, with thieves trying to make off with at least $10 million.The processor once rejected over 80% of deposits as fraudulent, far exceeding the industry standard of about 1%. Polymarket employees raised concerns to CEO Shayne Coplan. Insiders said the compliance team's response to Coplan was shocking: continue to grow, and if regulators find out, just pay the fines.

On September 14, blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs released a report revealing that fake YouTube tutorials lured 224 victims into deploying and funding malicious smart contracts under the guise of building AI-based crypto arbitrage bots, resulting in the theft of 274.6 ETH. TRM identified a total of 234 contracts deployed by the victims, with funds ultimately flowing into six collection addresses controlled by the operators. The stolen ETH was worth approximately $517,000 at the time of the transfer, with a median loss of 1 ETH per incident.Unlike common wallet theft attacks, this scam did not involve phishing links, spoofed domains, or malicious authorization prompts. Victims chose the tutorials themselves, copied the code, deployed the contracts, and funded them from their own wallets, with each step authorized by the victims themselves. As a result, wallet security warnings and phishing blacklists could not be triggered. TRM discovered nine nearly identical YouTube tutorials disguised as different creators, using AI-generated virtual hosts and voiceovers, promising to build fully automated crypto trading bots with Claude, and guiding victims to a compiler website controlled by the operators, some of which mimicked the commonly used Remix development environment.In one variant analyzed by TRM, a backend script would discard the source code pasted by the victims and retrieve another contract from the operator's server, with the clean code displayed on the screen never being on-chain. The replaced contract accepted deposits and transferred any balance over 0.05 ETH to the operators when the victims pressed Start or Withdraw, with no arbitrage logic or AI functionality included in the contract.

According to on-chain detective ZachXBT's post on his personal channel, Revolut allegedly failed to identify a fraudulent request, resulting in the personal identification information (PII) of some users being leaked. The leaked information includes copies of passports or driver's licenses and verification selfies, account statements, IBANs, withdrawal records, complete transaction histories including Bitcoin transactions, as well as names, birth dates, occupations, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.ZachXBT stated that the number of affected users may be limited, but it appears to target high-net-worth individuals. It is reported that several Revolut users received related security alert emails yesterday.

According to CNN, FTX founder SBF filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking a new trial and the reversal of a court order that sentenced him to forfeit $11 billion in assets. SBF was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024. Prosecutors stated that he directed the transfer of billions of dollars from the cryptocurrency exchange FTX to his controlled hedge fund Alameda Research, which were then used for high-risk investments, political donations, and personal expenses.The appeal filed to the Supreme Court primarily involves a technical legal issue regarding the submission of evidence during the trial, as well as whether SBF should be allowed to prove that his investments ultimately were profitable and sufficient to compensate for the losses suffered by FTX customers. Additionally, he argued that the forfeiture of $11 billion in assets violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits excessive fines.

Some criminal gangs use "free credit card repayment" as bait to lure ordinary people into providing credit card and identity information. They then launder illegal funds from overseas gambling, telecom fraud, and other activities by fabricating consumption and other means, and subsequently contact currency dealers to exchange for virtual currency to transfer abroad.

According to CoinDesk, a 22-year-old man from Singapore will plead guilty in one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in the United States.The scammer posed as customer service representatives from Google and Gemini, tricking an investor into handing over Bitcoin worth $240 million.

The Ukrainian police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) recently dismantled a scam network that used a fake investment platform to steal cryptocurrency. This network disguised itself as an investment platform website, luring users to connect their main cryptocurrency wallets and approve a small test transaction when withdrawing funds. Subsequently, it used a "wallet stealer" hidden within the website to automatically transfer user funds to wallets controlled by the operators, kicking victims off the platform. Investigators have currently confirmed 62 victims, with over 46 Ukrainian citizens involved, and the network could steal up to $1 million per month.The police stated that the false profits displayed on the platform are part of the scam, with operators manually creating transactions and adjusting user account balances to create the illusion of investment growth. In addition to cryptocurrency, the platform also collected victims' passport information, phone numbers, email addresses, login credentials, and photos during the registration and identity verification process. The main organizer of the network is a 25-year-old IT expert who recruited over 46 Ukrainian citizens and operated multiple offices in Kyiv and surrounding areas, with members responsible for building and maintaining fake websites, contacting potential victims, and providing security.Victims come from multiple countries, including Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Israel. The police traced the gang's server equipment located in the Netherlands and obtained a database stored there, which included a list of victims, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, suspected stolen amounts, internal communications, and platform operation information. The Ukrainian police and SBU subsequently executed 34 searches in Kyiv and surrounding areas, seizing over 100 computers, more than 100 mobile phones, 79 SIM cards, documents, cash, and 15 vehicles.

Base co-founder Jesse Pollak clarified in a post on platform X that his account was attacked, and the attacker published a scam token ticker through third-party applications connected to the account. Jesse stated that the related posts have been deleted, all third-party application connections have been removed, and he has regained full control of the account, reminding users to be cautious about security.According to a screenshot of the deleted post, after gaining control of Jesse Pollak's account, the attacker published a token named BASEMEME and described it as "the first meme coin with actual utility," along with the trading entry and contract address for o1.exchange. The market value of this meme coin is currently reported at $257,000.

The United States and the United Kingdom announced the establishment of the first joint law enforcement alliance aimed at combating fraud centers involving cryptocurrency and online investment scams. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, the UK Crown Prosecution Service, and the UK's National Crime Agency have signed a memorandum of understanding to conduct parallel investigations on common objectives, share intelligence on organized crime groups, and negotiate jurisdictional prosecution rights for specific cases.This alliance expands upon the "Fraud Center Task Force" initiated by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro in November 2025, focusing on Chinese organized crime networks primarily located in Southeast Asia that are involved in cryptocurrency investment scams, which are often linked to human trafficking and money laundering. The task force includes the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, IRS Criminal Investigation Division, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Department of Justice, and collaborates with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the State Department, and private enterprises to dismantle fraud operations and recover victims' funds.The U.S. Department of Justice pointed out that losses reported due to cryptocurrency investment scams in the U.S. continue to rise, with losses reported to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center increasing from $4.57 billion in 2023 to $8.65 billion in 2025. Previously, international law enforcement agencies had conducted joint operations, with a raid led by Dubai police on April 29, involving the FBI and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, resulting in the arrest of 276 individuals and the closure of at least 9 cryptocurrency scam centers. Several Southeast Asian countries are also strengthening domestic legislation, with Myanmar's military government releasing a draft on May 15 proposing a 10-year to life imprisonment for digital currency fraud, and the death penalty if a victim dies due to being coerced to work at a scam center; this bill was passed by parliament on July 28.

Real Trump Coins, associated with Trump, denies issuing, promoting, or authorizing any digital tokens, including the Trump Digital GOLD token, which collapsed shortly after briefly appearing on its online channels, attributing the promotional activity to "malicious third-party actors." Previously, Real Trump Coins' X account promoted this Solana-based token on Saturday and directed users to the RealTrumpCoins.com website; the related posts were later deleted, and the account now links to another domain, TrumpCoins.com.Real Trump Coins stated on the X platform: "Trump Coins has never authorized, nor will it issue, promote, or authorize any digital tokens," and indicated that it is cooperating with relevant authorities to investigate the matter. At the time of the statement, the issuance of the GOLD token was highly concentrated; according to on-chain analysis platform Lookonchain, developers and newly created wallets controlled 82.45% of the token's supply, with 15 wallets associated with the team having sold approximately $330,000 worth of holdings, realizing a profit of about $312,000.As of the time of publication, the RealTrumpCoins.com website still displays promotional information for the GOLD token, and Trump himself continues to follow Real Trump Coins' X account, which is one of the 53 accounts he follows.

According to IT Home, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) has announced the results of the new anti-fraud operation "Jackal IV." This operation will last from November 2025 to June 2026 and involves 22 countries and regions worldwide, focusing on combating online financial crimes such as romance scams, cryptocurrency and investment fraud, email scams, and money laundering. A total of 58 people were arrested in this round of operations, and the identities of 263 individuals involved have been confirmed.Among them, the Argentine police seized a "Crime-as-a-Service" (CaaS) network that provided website domain and money laundering services, arresting 17 people and confirming the identities of 196 individuals involved. The South African police raided 7 locations in Johannesburg, arresting 39 suspects accused of romance scams and investment fraud targeting retirees from English-speaking countries, while seizing $2.67 million and freezing 257 bank accounts.In addition, the Italian police confirmed one suspect involved in a cross-European money laundering network, discovering that a single bank account was linked to money laundering transactions amounting to €845,000; the Romanian police dismantled an investment fraud gang, arresting 11 people and seizing illegal assets such as cash, cryptocurrency, and real estate.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has listed Star Bridge Capital, Star Bridge Capital Group, SBCFX, Star Bridge Capital Group, Star Bridge Capital Pty Limited, and Topical Wealth International Ltd as unlicensed companies, prohibiting them from engaging in any regulated activities in Hong Kong or actively promoting their services to the public in Hong Kong (whether within or outside Hong Kong).Previously, it was reported that Star Bridge Capital experienced an abnormal liquidation incident in London gold trading, and after the incident, the Hong Kong office of the platform was empty. Due to some funds being deposited through USDT stablecoin, tracking the funds has become more difficult. The Hong Kong police have accepted the case and temporarily classified it as fraud, but no arrests have been made yet.

New York state officials warn that AI-generated content and fake cryptocurrency projects are making investment scams more deceptive. Investment scam losses exceed $8 billion, a 38% increase from 2024, with 144,041 consumers reporting losses, and the median loss per incident is $10,560. AI can be used to clone voices, forge videos, impersonate financial professionals, and create social media advertisements.New York Attorney General Letitia James has warned that scammers attract investors through deepfake endorsements of celebrities, fake cryptocurrencies, pump-and-dump schemes, and fraudulent trading platforms. Some fake platforms display forged account balances, earnings, and transaction records, allowing victims to withdraw small amounts to build trust, and then request additional funds or fees. New York state officials advise consumers to verify the identity of promoters, companies, and investment projects, and confirm the destination of funds. According to the FBI, reported losses from cybercrime amount to $20.877 billion, with complaints involving cryptocurrency losses totaling $11.37 billion. Common signs of scams include promises of high returns, unsolicited investment opportunities, high-pressure sales tactics, and projects lacking clear documentation.

According to Crunchbase, AI fraud prevention company Socure announced the completion of a $156 million strategic growth round financing, with the company's valuation reaching $5.2 billion. Summit Partners led the investment, with participation from Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Docusign, and others. Currently, its fraud prevention services are applied to companies such as cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, stablecoin issuer Circle, digital bank Revolut, and Robinhood.In addition, the company also announced the acquisition of AI startup Fravity, aiming to leverage AI agents to conduct fraud, risk, and compliance investigations, with the specific acquisition amount not yet disclosed.

According to a notice from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), scammers are frequently impersonating government agencies, banks, investment firms, utility companies, or tech support personnel to lure victims into transferring funds via cryptocurrency ATMs, gift cards, unfamiliar applications, or courier services. They exploit the irreversible nature of transactions and the difficulty in tracing address ownership to carry out their scams.Data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) of the FBI shows that in 2025, reported losses from scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs exceeded $388 million, a 58% increase from the previous year, with actual losses potentially higher due to underreporting.The CFTC states that legitimate government departments, financial institutions, and businesses will not ask users to transfer assets via cryptocurrency ATMs, gift cards, or courier services. If someone urges action by claiming "your account or identity is at urgent risk," or requests confidentiality, remote control of devices, or transfers to specified wallet addresses or QR codes, it should be considered a high-risk signal. Regulatory agencies recommend that users stop trading, independently verify information through official channels, and promptly report suspicious scams to the CFTC or FBI IC3.

Famous internet celebrity Di Shi revealed during a live broadcast that he was set up by his friend Sun Zeyu (founder of Genesis Capital), whom he had known for 8 years in the blockchain circle, resulting in cumulative losses of tens of millions of yuan. He stated that he had always regarded the other party as a reliable friend, not only allowing him to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum but also investing in the exchange that the other party operated in South Korea.Investigations found that some of the so-called "Ethereum" he received might actually just be fake chain assets specifically built by the other party. Di Shi claimed that there were only 7 addresses on that chain, 6 of which were related to the other party, and only 1 was his own. During this time, the other party was even able to help him "cash out" hundreds of thousands of yuan, making the scam appear extremely real. This scheme lasted for 8 years, and if it had not been discovered in time, the losses could have reached hundreds of millions of yuan after the price of coins increased.