Telegram scammers bounce WallStreetBets fans for $ 2,000,000

Another fraud case caused a stir. This time, the victims include people from the environment of the Reddit forum WallStreetBets.

Crypto scammers have looted over $ 2 million on Telegram. The perpetrator or perpetrators made use of the name of the famous Reddit forum WallStreetBets (WSB).

In the past few months, the WallStreetBets subreddit has made headlines again and again. The community of small investors defied institutional investors by purposefully buying shares in the ailing company Gamestop. Hedge funds that had bet against the Gamestop course, then drove losses in the millions. With the hype about Dogecoin, the subreddit is also in the foreground. The scammers exploited this popularity for their own purposes.

A supposed WallStreetBets token

Bloomberg reportedthat a channel called “WallStreetBets – Crypto Pumps” had appeared on Telegram. This offered users the opportunity to purchase a token called WSB Finance before it was officially listed. In order to get into possession of the supposed cryptocurrency related to the subreddit, the users had to transfer Ether or Binance Coin to a specified wallet. Then they should have made contact with a token bot on Telegram, which transferred their WSB Finance tokens to them.

Of course, the users never received their WSB Finance tokens. As also, these are nonexistent. Instead, the Telegram channel broadcast the request that the same amount should be transferred again due to a technical breakdown. Otherwise the first investment would also be invalid.

Transaction data shows that the scammers removed almost 3.5 thousand Binance Coin from their wallet on May 4th. Since the price of a Binance Coin at the time was $ 625, they took in $ 2.1 million. How much ether they captured is unclear. WallStreetBets administrators warned on Reddit two weeks ago that criminals could exploit the subreddit’s popularity for dubious purposes.

The WallStreetBets-Crypto-Pumps-Channel no longer exists on Telegram. In the meantime, he left a message as a farewell that would appear like a red rag on cheated investors: “Buy Lambo now.”

The fact that crypto scammers are looking for victims on social networks is nothing new. A large-scale Bitcoin scam made headlines on Twitter and Youtube last year. Back then, hackers had gained access to user accounts with particularly high coverage. Meanwhile, Instagram influencer Jay Mazini recently cheated his followers for $ 2.5 million. It remains to be seen whether the WallStreetBets fraudster will suffer a similar fate as Mazini. The latter, however, faces up to 20 years imprisonment.