The Washington Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) has alerted cryptocurrency market participants about fraudsters posing as finance professors to deceive individuals into investing in various scam schemes related to digital assets.
According to DFI, hackers impersonate employees of various institutes, academies, and business schools, luring potential victims into educational courses.
The scammers advertise their services on the social network Facebook. After clicking on the advertisement, users receive an email from a course representative promising high investment returns. Interested investors are added to chats in messengers such as WhatsApp or Telegram, where trading signals for digital assets are posted daily.
Fake academies also offer traders large loans as part of exclusive offers. Users are required to provide personal information and sign a loan agreement. If the victim refuses, the “professor’s assistant” takes out a loan in digital assets and credits the user’s account.
DFI notes that scammers display fake screenshots of profits, but blockchain explorers show that no transactions have occurred.
The thieves assure investors that the loan can be repaid with future profits. In reality, the victims’ accounts are frozen, and they are threatened with lawsuits, demanding loan repayment from their own funds.
Additionally, DFI reported numerous complaints against the Excellence and Innovation Fortune Business School, which claimed to specialize in investments and finance.
The fraudsters’ organization attracted users to a cryptocurrency scheme with ICHCOIN, where many have already lost millions of dollars. For instance, to convince a victim, the fraudsters credited 500 USDT to her ICHCOIN account, convincing her to invest $300,000 in the scheme.
