For some time now, pages that promise quick money have been popping up again and again, even as sponsored advertising on Facebook: Be it a fake BILD article about an investment opportunity from “The Lion's Den” (see HERE ) or an alleged new currency from Amazon (see HERE ): The links always point to dubious sites that promise easy money by investing in Bitcoin.
But behind it is a gigantic, international network that only aims to take money out of gullible people's pockets!

The lure

Sponsored posts appear again and again, especially on Facebook and Instagram, that use prominent people and fake news sites to lure people to fraudulent Bitcoin sites. For example, they look like this:

Advertisement on Facebook with a link to a fake news article
Advertisement on Facebook with a link to a fake news article

The articles then always look like a real article from a medium, only the Internet address (URL) in the address bar of the browser reveals that you are not on the real page.
In addition, the articles always refer to a platform on which you should register in several places. Here is an example of such a fraudulent site:

A fraudulent Bitcoin investment platform
A fraudulent Bitcoin investment platform

Basically, the scam starts like this:

  • You should register on the site
  • Both on the welcome page and after registration you can repeatedly read (fake) “success reports” from other users
  • After registration you should deposit €250 into the “trading account”.

A huge network

The Group-IB Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-GIB) has investigated several fake Bitcoin investment schemes targeting European citizens. The investigation uncovered and analyzed a massive network infrastructure containing over 10,000 fraudulent resources, including similar fraudulent resources targeting residents throughout the Eurasian continent and North America.

The following countries in Europe are affected by this fraud scheme: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic and Great Britain.

CERT-GIB was able to identify 11,197 domains used to build the fraudulent infrastructure in Europe - including chains of redirects and hosts of fraudulent content.

MIMIKAMA
Graphical representation of one of the domains leading to a large network of fraudulent sites, source: Group-IB Threat Intelligence

How the scam works

The scam is a combination of online and offline techniques. After registering on such a site, you get a call from a supposed broker who gives you the URL to the actual scam platform. The “personal trading account” should first be topped up with 250 euros.

The phone call also seems serious at first. Questions are asked that you would also get asked from a real broker, such as:

  • Why do you want to invest?
  • How much can you invest?
  • How do you make your money?
  • How much time do you spend working?

No matter what you answer, the wrong broker will always respond positively and confirm that they are good conditions to invest,

On a fake investment site, the supposed broker then helps you make the “right” investment decisions in order to trick you into investing more than 250 euros. The site is always manipulated as if the victim had made a profit if he had invested a few seconds ago.

Over the next few days, the fake broker will repeatedly encourage the victim to invest additional sums, and the money appears to keep increasing on the fake investment site. But at some point you want to have the money in your hands, right?

Payout never possible

If you want to pay out the money, the nasty surprise slowly comes: it is never possible!
Most of the time, the wrong broker tells you that an investment still needs to be made in order to cover the withdrawal fees. But even after that nothing happens, new problems keep cropping up with the payout.

Until the final blow in the financial pit of the stomach comes: Neither the site nor the “broker” can be reached in any way. And of course the money that has been paid in so far, often several thousand euros, is also gone.

Conclusion

So it's not just simple fraudsters behind this scam, but a well-organized and widespread criminal network that mainly looks for its victims on social media. It is even more shocking that Facebook repeatedly allows sponsored advertising from this network, even though it is clear that this is a scam.

So please never fall for this scam! No, you can't simply increase your money by just 250 euros in Bitcoins. Because you don't invest, you give it to criminals - and you'll never see the money again!

Source and article image: Group-IB Threat Intelligence


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Notes:
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