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The total loss reported by Australians has gone up to AU$180 million after the recent decade where at least $122 million has been lost in these investments. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) profiles a strong alarm on Wednesday, considering the heavy spike and significant presence of crypto-produced deceits.
A Rising Threat: Scams Awareness Week 2024
These were the warning signs that were alluded to in the participation in the 2024 Scams Awareness Week, the campaigns of the annual campaign to report and prevent the fraudulent schemes. The AFP, in association with the state police, is calling for the populace of Australia to “share the story, stop the scam” which by the way the mentioning of the community is the primary weapon in the combating of these scams.
The AFP thus stresses out that people should now completely be conscious that the scams are very proliferating and more than any perhaps even greater in time. They were told that offers, even the ones with a very real look, may be spurious.
Young Australians Particularly at Risk
The AFP announced the recent removing of Australians who have fallen through the investment scams for cryptocurrencies between 2016 and 2021.1 Among other pieces of data from the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre is that cryptocurrencies accounted for nearly half of all investment scam losses reported to law enforcement.
According to that statement the reset is AU$382 million ($259 million) with the greatest part of 47%, the rest concerns losses from digital tokens.
He was cautious in pointing out that the risk of a person being a victim of an investment scam does exist, and therefore, the public should be careful when they encounter such types of situations, in which the offers seem too beautiful to be true.
“It’s now time for Scams Awareness Week to serve as a precautionary measure for everyone who lives in those areas to signal an investment scam and eventually escape being the next victim,” Chin stated.
Sophisticated Tactics: From Pig Butchering to Deepfakes
The AFP has observed that scammers are taking advantage of situations using more and more innovative tactics to defraud victims – such as, among others, the use of pressure tactics, the pig butchering con, and the employment of deepfake technology. These methods make it difficult for potential victims to discern the legitimacy of the investment opportunities they are presented with.
Scammers are also using other methods of threat such as the engagement of various pressure tactics and the application of creative methods to puncture victims into more wrong investment decisions. The first method is the so-called pig butchering, while using deepfake technology is the other one,” Chin elucidated.
AFP’s Collaborative Effort to Support Victims
In order to grapple with this issue, the AFP has joined banks as well as crypto exchanges to either help the victims or recover funds lost to such scamming schemes. A special cyber.gov.au portal has been curated for the victims to get their crypto fraud reported and then seek assistance from it.
Chin, meanwhile, has taken the lead in launching a campaign encouraging helpless victims to speak out. “The more people who know about these unscrupulous criminals, the harder it will be for them to scam victims”, he added.
Parallel to these actions, the AFP has put out a video message as part of its awareness campaign showing how these scammers work and how the public can protect themselves.
The conclusion drawn by Chin is easy to understand: if a place to invest your money is too good to be true, it is more likely to be a scam than a legitimate opportunity.
