On Monday, the North American Securities Administrators Association informed that financial regulators in US and Canada are set to launch an international crackdown on investment schemes based on digital currencies.
Operation Crypto-Sweep has already undertaken 70 investigations with the help of more than 40 state and provincial watchdogs. The new project heavily focuses on Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs with other investment schemes as they have been the leading platform to dupe innocent investors.
Director of enforcement at the Texas State Securities Board, Joseph Rotunda, said, “Although the international task force’s work is far from complete, my suspicions have already been confirmed: The market for cryptocurrency investments is saturated with fraud, and our work is only revealing the tip of the iceberg.”
Earlier this month, BTCrush, a UK based private investment company, received a warning letter from Texas regulators for violating security laws and launching fraudulent marketing schemes. Sample videos were published by the company which showed the interiors and operations of its fully functional mining farms. However, state regulators ignored the video for bring fake and using footage available in public domain. Similarly, actions were taken against Wind Wide Coin that used unauthorized pictures of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Prince Charles to promote their digital currency.
Rotunda added, “Promoters also know that anyone can be anyone and say anything about anything on the internet. Not surprisingly, they are also manipulating photographs, media, testimonials and other online information to deceive the public into believing their claims.”
Recently, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been hyperactive in discovering crypto scams before they conduct any unfortunate event. SEC has launched an official website to help investors in segregating fraud schemers from the genuine ones. The numbers of fraud cases brought by SEC have also increased lately. The regulators are supporting the project from Massachusetts.
The website is named HoweyCoins.com which is a representation of a too good to be true scam platform that takes them to the official page of SEC that declares they were about to be duped. As soon as the user clicks on “Buy Coins Now” they are told about the reality which in a sense is a great way to inform the users about the increasing frauds prevailing in crypto space.
The state’s secretary of the Commonwealth, William Francis Galvin, claimed that NASAA’s task force recorded almost 30,000 crypto-based domain registrations after the meteoric rise of bitcoin in December 2017.
Galvin warned the investors to take high-security measures in approaching any ICO or crypto related investments as not all the businesses are just. He added that fake companies offering investment platforms should be acknowledged as a serious threat to the investors of Massachusetts.
It should be noted that bitcoin and other altcoins have started to enjoy a market jump after the first quarter of the year which can directly be linked to more cases of scams. An investor must take precautions before making any move as cybercriminals have become more sophisticated with the hike in technological development.
