The New Jersey Bureau of Securities has ordered three website operators to stop luring romance-seeking victims into their fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes..
The three companies affected by the cease and desist orders are Meta Capitals Limited, Cresttrademining Limited and Forex Market Trade, according to a February 3 press release from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
All three firms claimed to be cryptocurrency trading platforms, in which lured victims into copying the trades of their “expert traders” in order to make huge profits.
These companies recruit victims by contacting people seeking partners on dating apps such as Tinder through what is known as the “pig butchering” scam.
Online scammers are taking advantage of investors in a new scam known as “pig butchering” where victims are “fattened up” before scammers take all they can. With today’s cease and desist orders we’re protecting NJ from cryptocurrency fraud. https://t.co/Q6xX5l4Ohk
—Attorney General Matt Platkin (@NewJerseyOAG) February 3, 2023
Online scammers are taking advantage of investors in a new scam known as “pig butchering,” in which victims are “fattened” before the scammers make off with whatever they can get. With today’s cease and desist orders we are protecting NJ from cryptocurrency fraud.
Pig butchering is a scam in which cybercriminals use social media to contact victims, instigate a romantic relationship, and then lure them into a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme once their trust has been earned.
Platkin said that are working hard to protect New Jerseyans who are lured into the investment scam:
“These scammers build a sense of camaraderie between themselves and their victim — all to squeeze every penny they can out of these people with promises of huge investment returns.”
“We are working tirelessly to protect victims of these types of scams. and to show these scammers that our laws still apply in cyberspacePlatkin added.
The Acting Director of the Office’s Division of Consumer Affairs, Cari Fais, also hopes that the coercive measures will make it clear that they will “go after scammers who take advantage of people’s trust”.
The offensive occurs when the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that some 4,300 victims had lost a total of $429 million to pig butchering scams alone in 2021. Statistics for 2022 have not yet been released.
The head of the Securities Office, Amy Kopleton, suggested that The pig butchering scam works well for scammers because their target audience is already in a position of vulnerability.:
“Even the most astute of investors can have a hard time recognizing fraud when it is perpetrated by someone they have a romantic interest in.”
It was also discovered that the companies affected by the cease and desist orders had violated New Jersey securities laws by offering and selling unregistered securitiesthe office said.
In addition, Meta Capitals Limited and Cresttrademining Limited were found to be operating as unregistered brokers.
Pig butchering scams are not only rampant in the United States.
A recent investigation by the UK’s Office of Investigative Journalism, conducted on January 29, found that of the 168 forex companies it believed to be engaged in fraudulent activity, about half were involved in scams similar to “pig butchering”.
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