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(Kitco News) -
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a statement on Monday warning about false job advertisements issued by criminals running crypto scams designed to entrap and traffic employment candidates.
The agency said Americans and others who work or live abroad are being targeted with job postings linked to criminal organizations in Southeast Asia where “victims are held against their will, intimidated, and forced to commit international cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes.”
According to the FBI, the criminals post false job advertisements on social media and online employment sites for roles including tech support, call center customer service, and beauty salon technicians. Respondents are lured by the promise of competitive salaries, lucrative benefits, and paid travel and living expenses.
As the recruiting process continues, the location for the position is changed from the one listed in the posting, and once the candidates arrive in the country, “criminal actors use multiple means to coerce them to commit cryptocurrency investment schemes, such as confiscation of passports and travel documents, threat of violence, and use of violence.”
The criminals assign debts to the victims claiming they are responsible for the cost of travel and accommodations and use these supposed debts and the victims’ fear of local law enforcement to control them. “Trafficked victims are sometimes sold and transferred between compounds, further adding to their debt,” they said.
To protect themselves against these human trafficking rings, the FBI urges job seekers to properly research the advertised company before accepting any job offer, and to be wary of “vague language” about the company or thin employment details. They also said postings with unusually high salaries and perks should be seen as a red flag.
The agency said anyone considering relocating to a different country for work should inform family and friends of the details of the job, including the contact info from the posting, and they should “schedule regular check-ins with family and friends to confirm safety and well-being.”
U.S. law enforcement agencies have been stepping up their scrutiny of the digital currencies space and their enforcement actions against crypto criminals as the ecosystem has become a growing target for financial and cyber crime.
On May 15, Eun Young Choi, the U.S. Department of Justice’s top crypto enforcer, announced a major crackdown on digital platforms and other sources of crypto crime, saying the DoJ will target cryptocurrency exchanges as well as the “mixers and tumblers” that help hide the trail of transactions from regulators.
Choi was appointed by President Joe Biden last year to direct the Department’s new national cryptocurrency enforcement team.
She said focusing on platforms should “send a deterrent message” to other digital assets businesses that are circumventing anti-money laundering (AML) or know-your-customer (KYC) rules, or do not have robust compliance and risk mitigation measures.
“We’re seeing the scale and the scope of digital assets being used in a variety of illicit ways grow significantly over the last, say, four years,” she said. “I think that is concurrent with the increase of its adoption by the public writ large.”
Choi said the DoJ’s crypto unit will also focus on investment scams, which caused $2.5 billion in losses in 2022 compared to around $900 million in 2021, according to the FBI.
And on Aug. 29, the FBI issued an alert highlighting the dangers of decentralized finance (DeFi), which the agency said has become a favorite target of cybercriminals.
“Cyber criminals seek to take advantage of investors’ increased interest in cryptocurrencies, as well as the complexity of cross-chain functionality and open source nature of DeFi platforms,” the agency said.
