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Canadian Citizen Almost Lost $90,000 to Bitcoin Scammers, Who Impersonated Local Authorities

Wed, 07/08/2020 - 08:21
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Yuri Molchan
Canadian Bitcoin Scammers who pretended to be local authorities almost managed to grab $90,000 from a victim through a crypto ATM. Here’s what happened
Canadian Citizen Almost Lost $90,000 to Bitcoin Scammers, Who Impersonated Local Authorities
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As reported by Canadian media, scammers recently attempted to force a local individual to give them his life savings totaling $90,000 via a Bitcoin vending machine.

They impersonated the local authorities, including the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), but failed to get the money from the victim.

Fake Canada Revenue Agency demands Bitcoin

The incident took place last week, when a man, whose name is not disclosed, got a phone call from someone calling themselves a local revenue service officer.

The caller informed the person that money launderers had compromised his identity. The victim was instructed to take a substantial amount of money - $90,000 (which was the person’s life savings) into a Bitcoin machine and transact it to a BTC address to solve all the legal issues.

As per the RCMP press-release, the only thing that in the end stopped the person from fulfilling the scammers’ demands was a scam-warning post at the ATM machine and an employee at the business.

The release also included a reminder that government authorities, the police or any highly-reputable business would never demand a crypto payment via a direct phone call or letter/email.

Related
Fake Ripple CEO Starts Petition for Own Firm: New Low for XRP Scams

Payment to BTC scammers detected by Whale Alert

The major tracking bot on Twitter Whale Alert recently detected that 1.51 BTC was wired to a confirmed fake exchange scam.

BTC
Image via Twitter

Recently, U.Today reported that scammers impersonating Joe Rogan, a US comedian and podcast host, also received 1.7 BTC from unaware victims.

Whale Alert has set up a Scam Alert service where anyone can check any BTC address to see if it is associated with any crypto scams, as well as see recent transactions made by victims to con artists.

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About the author

Yuri is a crypto journalist interested in technology and technical innovations. He has been in crypto since 2017. Believes that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a potential to transform the world in the future in many of its aspects. ‘Hodls’ major cryptocurrencies and has written for multiple crypto media outlets. 

His articles have been quoted by such crypto influencers as Tyler Winklevoss, John McAfee, CZ Binance, Max Keiser, etc.

Currently Yuri is a news writer at U.Today and can be contacted at yuri.molchan@u.today.