Singapore Regulator Warns Against 'National Cryptocurrency' Scam

Tuesday, 29/01/2019 | 14:03 GMT by David Kimberley
  • The regulator says that scammers have been selling a fake Singaporean cryptocurrency
Singapore Regulator Warns Against 'National Cryptocurrency' Scam
Bloomberg

Great news everybody, the government of Zimbabwe is going to be launching its own cryptocurrency. Called the NOTASCAM Token, you can download its Whitepaper , which looks suspiciously like used toilet paper, from some random website somewhere in the dark depths of the internet.

As we have a highly intelligent reader-base here at Finance Magnates, I hope that no one took the above too seriously.

“Of course no one did you idiot,” you’re thinking. And how I wish that were the case but, unfortunately, some people really, really, really want to be lied to and told that, if they just buy some garbage, they’ll be billionaires in a couple of days.

A case in point - this Tuesday the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had to release an announcement saying that the small South-East Asian nation is not going to be launching its own cryptocurrency.

“The MAS,” said the regulator in a statement posted on its website, “warns members of the public not to be misled by fraudulent websites that solicit investments in Cryptocurrencies using fabricated information attributed to the Singapore Government.”

MAS

According to the MAS, scammers across the web have been claiming that Singapore is launching its own cryptocurrency and then ‘selling’ those tokens to unsuspecting members of the public across the globe.

Scammers make fake articles, purporting to be from respected news outlets, saying that Singapore is launching a national cryptocurrency and that they have chosen a specific company to sell that cryptocurrency.

Said company is, as you would expect, owned and operated by the scammers. They encourage people to deposit cash with them and hand over sensitive bank information. After that, a person’s cash disappears, never to be seen again, except perhaps in a suburb of Kiev.

“What is to be done?” Lenin, a well-known scammer, asked over a hundred years ago with regard to the state of affairs in Russia. Today we could ask the same question about online financial scams. The criminals will just have to hope we don’t start treating them like kulaks.

Great news everybody, the government of Zimbabwe is going to be launching its own cryptocurrency. Called the NOTASCAM Token, you can download its Whitepaper , which looks suspiciously like used toilet paper, from some random website somewhere in the dark depths of the internet.

As we have a highly intelligent reader-base here at Finance Magnates, I hope that no one took the above too seriously.

“Of course no one did you idiot,” you’re thinking. And how I wish that were the case but, unfortunately, some people really, really, really want to be lied to and told that, if they just buy some garbage, they’ll be billionaires in a couple of days.

A case in point - this Tuesday the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had to release an announcement saying that the small South-East Asian nation is not going to be launching its own cryptocurrency.

“The MAS,” said the regulator in a statement posted on its website, “warns members of the public not to be misled by fraudulent websites that solicit investments in Cryptocurrencies using fabricated information attributed to the Singapore Government.”

MAS

According to the MAS, scammers across the web have been claiming that Singapore is launching its own cryptocurrency and then ‘selling’ those tokens to unsuspecting members of the public across the globe.

Scammers make fake articles, purporting to be from respected news outlets, saying that Singapore is launching a national cryptocurrency and that they have chosen a specific company to sell that cryptocurrency.

Said company is, as you would expect, owned and operated by the scammers. They encourage people to deposit cash with them and hand over sensitive bank information. After that, a person’s cash disappears, never to be seen again, except perhaps in a suburb of Kiev.

“What is to be done?” Lenin, a well-known scammer, asked over a hundred years ago with regard to the state of affairs in Russia. Today we could ask the same question about online financial scams. The criminals will just have to hope we don’t start treating them like kulaks.

About the Author: David Kimberley
David Kimberley
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About the Author: David Kimberley
  • 1226 Articles
  • 19 Followers

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