A Bitcoin
$114,521.00
investor in Wales has lost about $2.8 million after being tricked by a scammer pretending to be a senior UK police officer.
According to a report by BBC on August 20, investigators noted that the individual’s personal information had already been exposed in a separate breach.
Using this data, the scammer introduced themselves as a high-ranking UK officer and claimed the person’s details had appeared during another investigation.
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The caller then pressured the victim to “secure their funds” through a website that looked legitimate but was entirely fake.
Following the instructions, the victim entered the recovery phrase of their hardware wallet on the site. Once this phrase was typed in, the scammer gained full access and emptied the wallet.
North Wales Police explained that no officer would ever contact the public to discuss cryptocurrency accounts, storage devices, or recovery phrases. They emphasized that any request of this kind should be treated as a clear warning sign.
Officials are using this incident to warn the public. Scammers are no longer focused only on beginners but are also creating detailed schemes aimed at experienced investors.
To reduce risks, police recommend that recovery phrases remain written down and stored offline only. They should never be entered into websites or apps, no matter how convincing they look.
Recently, the security firm Scam Sniffer reported that a scammer stole over $900,000 from a crypto wallet. How? Read the full story.
