The Vancouver Police have sent out alerts to all residents within the city who are thinking of investing in cryptocurrency. They have requested that residents perform proper due diligence before making their investments, seeing how incredibly dangerous the market can be.
Their recent announcement to potential crypto investors comes after them receiving multiple complaints about scams. The Delta Police Department, which received six complaints in quick succession, had all complaints come in August. Furthermore, the situation seems to be very severe, as nearly all of the complaints saw relevant parties lose exorbitant amounts.
The police also made a public press release following the sheer number of complaints that they received. They confirmed that, unfortunately, all, of the losses from the relevant parties have been quite significant. The smallest loss they saw was of just $5,000, and the highest was of $100,000.
Upon further investigation, the police saw that there is a multitude of factors that were similar throughout all of the complaints. This has led the police to consider the fact that there may be a single group responsible for these attacks.
In most cases, victims got in touch with scammers through online apps. Some of the victims were approached through dating apps, while others talked on Instagram or Facebook. Regardless of the platform that the scammer used, in each case, they established a relationship with the victim. And once they would establish that connection, they would try to encourage victims to transfer money to them through an untraceable process.
The police further added in their press release that victims would send money to these scammers with hopes of profitable investments. Therefore, investors would transfer their money to an e-wallet from their bank account, after which they would send it to an unknown account.
It is worth mentioning that these victims were more than able to see their accounts and their money. The real issue would come when they would try to withdraw any of it. Either the money would disappear before they can withdraw it, or they would have to pay more money to access it.
Following this very difficult-to-trace incident, the police insisted that people looking to invest should first do their research. They should look up the company’s history and try to find out if there have been other reports of scams. Investors should also check the company’s reputation, and if they can find out information about its owners. Most fraudulent companies do not have information about their CEOs, as this can be incriminating evidence.
The Police concluded their statement by saying that if investors see any red flags, they should instantly be suspicious.
