The US investigative agency warned about the presence of crypto scammers on the popular professional platform LinkedIn. During an interview with CNBC, FBI special agent Sean Ragan said crypto fraudsters on LinkedIn are an essential threat to user safety. He added that there are a lot of potential victims, as well as past and current ones.
Related: Crypto Scams Caused over $1 B Losses Through Social Media
Usually, the scheme operates as the following: a scammer is acting as a specialist opening a fake profile and connecting a user.They initiate a communication via messaging and offer the user to make profit by investing in crypto. CNBC says victims said since LinkedIn is a trusted environment, they believed the actions are legit.
Then, the criminal directs the user to a valid crypto platform and gains the user's trust for some months. Doing so, the scammers tell users to transfer the investment to a site supervised by them, and drain the funds. Ragan said criminals are always coming up with various ways to deceive people, and companies.
The FBI agent also noted that the number of cases of this certain investment fraud has been increasing. It's different from a common scam where the scammer pretends to be romantically interested in the subject and gets away with their money.