Daily fraud update: 16th October

Charlie Lee hits out at Instagram fakers

The founder of Litecoin has made an impassioned post noting that scammers appear to be using his name without permission.

Charlie Lee said in a public post that the problem was occurring on the photo-sharing social network site Instagram.

He alleged that the account which is impersonating him was called “satoshi.ltc” – a reference to Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious and anonymous founder of Bitcoin.

“satoshi.ltc on @instagram has been impersonating me for months and scamming people”, he wrote.

“There are likely others and Instagram hasn’t done anything about them.”

“My real Instagram account is SatoshiLite just like Twitter”, he added.

He also appeared to suggest that Instagram’s account discipline procedures were not up to scratch.

“Ironically, my account has been banned for impersonation”, he said.

The move is part of a growing trend in the eyes of many crypto traders.

Cryptocurrency content is somewhat new to Instagram, and the platform has had to come to grips with policing what can sometimes seem like an easy win for scammers willing to create fraudulent content.

The announcement from Lee comes just a day after Cameron Winklevoss, who co-founded the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and who has been a passionate advocate for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, said that he too had been impersonated on the site.

“Dear @instagram – there is a person/[profile] impersonating me and running a crypto scam – it has now persisted for days”, he wrote.

“I’ve reported it, countless friends and associates have reported it, and yet the [profile] is still up…help would be appreciated!” he added.

Investigation launched in Russia following alleged forex embezzlement

Police in the Russian capital of Moscow have announced they will look into what is being described by the crypto press as a criminal group involved in the embezzlement of foreign exchange funds.

It is understood that some of the firms have operated under the guise of an organisation called STForex – and they are accused of a scam which cost investors around 1bn rubles.

This sum is equivalent to around $15.5m.

Local press reports suggest that the alleged scammers managed to hook in investors via a series of marketing tools such as training courses, and that they have also rented a high-end office.

These courses appeared to suggest that money could be easily made.

Following a series of small deposits, investors began to invest larger amounts.

Some are believed to have taken out loans secured against their properties.

Now, some people accused of being involved in the scam have been taken into custody.

This includes the co-proprietor of STForex, Aleksander Smirnov, as well as someone who works with him as an assistant.

They were released on bail.

However, law enforcement officials in the country are understood to believe that there are as many as nine people involved in the alleged scam.

Chris Lee

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