When Joe Biden calls, all alarm bells should ring. Not because you could enlighten the US President about the usefulness of Bitcoin mining. Rather, because it is very likely to be a scammer. The Recommendation US Federal Trade Commission: Hang up immediately. But there is another way: The Kraken crypto exchange throws out the bait with a fake crypto account and half a million US dollars. The shady caller scents fat prey and bites hungry.
“I am in. Oh come on Understood. You did a good job,” said the alleged scammer, who can hardly believe his luck. What he doesn’t know is that Kitboga is sitting on the other end of the line. The streamer has almost 1.2 million followers on Twitch and around 3 million subscribers on YouTube. In his videos he settles accounts with call center scammers. Through a partnership with Kraken, Kitboga is now setting the trap for the alleged crypto scammer.
The crypto exchange created a “tailor-made environment” for this – a fake Kraken account with $455,000. Kitboga, posing as an older man, shows the balance sheet via screen-sharing software. Excited about the potential big payday, the crook sends a wallet address for the money to flow to – the fish is hooked.
Happy too early: Fraudster swallows Bitcoin bait
The punchline: Kitboga entered the wrong address, on purpose. The suspected scammer gets angry and launches a tirade of abuse. Investigations are already underway in the background. Because: The supposed Joe Biden seems to have given a BTC wallet address hosted by Kraken. This allows the crypto exchange to flag activity and reveal true identity – the trap snaps shut.
Such attempts at fraud have multiplied rapidly in recent years. in one Video of May 1, Kitboga pointed to a new “Social Security scam.” When victims call the number provided, the scammers demand payment in Bitcoin and refer to an allegedly stolen identity.
Beware of the crypto scammers
Whether it’s through the work of Kitboga or the transparency of the blockchain, crypto fraud cases have decreased by around 50 percent in 2022. In terms of the amount of assets stolen, the sector is down $5 billion from a year earlier. Loud analysis report by Chainalysis, the damage last year was 5.9 billion US dollars.
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Romance scams in particular are among the most devastating scams. On average, victims lost about $15,000 to such scammers in the past year. After the suspected scammers establish contact with their victims, they feign infatuation or other feelings and then demand financial support. You can read about how a woman lost 120,000 euros in this way in issue 68 of the BTC-ECHO magazine.
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