A British couple lost £15,000 in cryptocurrency savings within minutes after they were targeted by a phishing scam. Individuals with large sums held in bitcoin or other digital currencies are warned to remain vigilant.
Cryptocurrency| Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team
The couple, Loreta and Mindaugus from Sussex were tricked by a fake bonus offer from a scammer pretending to work for Coinbase, shortly before the leading crypto platform went public in New York earlier this year. The couple have chosen not to disclose their surnames to retain their anonymity.
Mindaugus was told by the hackers that he was eligible for a £60 bonus if he bought the initial Coinbase stock via their website. Within nine minutes of being duped into sharing their account details they were scammed out of £15,000.
Loreta stated that at first it was believed to be a mistake or glitch, “but since their knowledge base had no option that covered any bugs or glitches, we decided to inform Coinbase that my husband’s account has been compromised. But all we got back was a password reset request.”
Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, valued at around $46bn with over 56 million users worldwide. It also drew significant attention following its direct listing on the US stock market in April of this year.
Following the hackers’ initial withdrawal of £15,000 they tried to trick the pair into divulging further information by sharing a password reset for the Binance platform, before calling them and claiming to be a Coinbase agent.
Loreta added that the “next thing I hear, he’s telling us to prove our identity either by transferring £5,000 from our Binance account to Coinbase or by giving them our Binance authentication code so that they can transfer the missing £15,000 to my husband’s Binance account.’
After this interaction the pair realised they had been scammed and declined the transaction before reporting the incident to the police.
The crypto trading platform Binance has since been banned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from conducting regulated activity in the UK.
Researchers at CyberNews found Loreta and Mindaugus’ cryptocurrency had been laundered through an elaborate network of crypto wallets, which makes the funds essentially untraceable. Accordingly, it may not be a surprise that the police investigation into this matter was closed due to a lack of evidence.
As more people are purchasing cryptocurrencies these scams are becoming increasingly more common. This is partly because cryptocurrencies are still relatively new meaning investors tend to have less knowledge about the asset they possess. Phishing attacks are also highly sophisticated making it harder to identify fake messages when they ostensibly appear to come from a person or brand we trust.
A recent survey from the FCA revealed that ownership of digital currencies such as bitcoin have increased but our understanding of such currencies has declined slightly.
A spokesperson for Coinbase noted that “Coinbase does not make unsolicited phone calls to its customers, nor will we ever ask a customer for remote access to their computer, password, or two-factor security codes.” Investors are reminded to remain alert to these types of scams and think before sharing any personal or confidential information over the phone or via email.
Rosenblatt can help
Rosenblatt has a wealth of experience in financial crime and is uniquely placed to support clients that are the subject of Private Prosecutions or investigations by the Police having being involved in some of the most high profile investigations into multi-million-pound, cross jurisdictional fraud cases in the UK.
https://www.rosenblatt-law.co.uk/services/financial-crime/#financial-crime
https://www.rosenblatt-law.co.uk/services/serious-and-general-crime/
(Sources: CyberNews – This couple lost £15,000 to scammers. We followed the money – and found millions in stolen crypto, This is Money – Beware the crypto scammers: Fraudsters fleece British couple of £15,000 in NINE minutes through phishing scam)
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