scam

Anthropic released the latest AI abuse report stating that app development studios have utilized Claude to develop and operate over 20 dating apps. The platform claims that all users are real people, but approximately 75% of the matches that regular users encounter are AI characters. During a two-week observation period in April 2026, these dating apps operated over 4,700 AI characters, chatting with at least 25,000 different users and sending a total of about 2.36 million messages, primarily affecting users in the United States.The platform displays profiles in a mixed ratio of about 3 AI characters for every 1 real person. Claude simultaneously maintains thousands of conversations, with real part-time staff stepping in when users request video calls, ask for photos, or seek to follow social media accounts. The system generates three alternative replies for each message for part-time staff to choose from. User chatting and matching consume credits, and once depleted, users must purchase in-app virtual currency to recharge. Accounts fully controlled by AI are required not to acknowledge that they are robots.To evade app store scrutiny, the operators designed a special interface that is only activated during the review period, with over 20 apps using different program class names. Relevant brands disclosed by Anthropic include DORA, DONI, ROMI, LUMA, JOVIA, KIRA, GRACECHAT, HAVEN, NALO, and LOVIA. The company has banned related accounts and provided information on app identities and review evasion to Apple and Google.

According to a notice from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department's Fraud Center Strike Force, in coordination with the Department of the Treasury, took coordinated law enforcement action against Xinbi Guarantee, seizing and restricting the disposal of over 52 million dollars in cryptocurrency in a single day, bringing the total assets restricted by the task force to approximately 938 million dollars. Tether provided proactive assistance in this investigation.The Department of Justice alleges that Xinbi is an illegal scam service market primarily operating through Telegram, providing customized investment scam websites, money laundering services, and recruiting victims of human trafficking to work in scam parks in Southeast Asia. Law enforcement has seized its Telegram channel and two cryptocurrency wallets holding approximately 12 million dollars, and restricted the disposal of an additional 47 related wallets.At the same time, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Xinbi as a significant transnational criminal organization and sanctioned two additional entities that support it. The task force also assisted Madagascar in shutting down 13 scam parks operated by Chinese criminal groups, processing over 3,200 electronic devices, and local authorities arrested nearly 400 people.

Hunter Biden posted on the X platform to defend his upcoming LAPTOP meme coin, calling it a "recycling" of the laptop scandal that has troubled him for years, and bluntly stated that Trump's TRUMP token is a "scam." He said, "They turned the laptop into a weapon, I turned it into a token." LAPTOP will allocate 20% of the tokens for community airdrops, including nearly a million wallets that lost money on TRUMP; another 30% will be linked to political, crypto, and cultural predictions, with tokens that come true being burned, while those that fail will be donated to charity; the founding team will receive 30%, with a lock-up and release period in place. Biden also warned buyers not to expect him or any other parties to drive up the token's price: "You shouldn't expect me or anyone else to make this token more valuable. LAPTOP is not just about ownership, but about expression." Previously, crypto traders reacted strongly to the project, Kraken has deleted related promotional posts, and video journalist Andrew Callaghan announced he would distance himself from the project after learning that his audience was included in the token distribution plan. Base founder Jesse Pollak stated that the project team had approached his team, but Base made a "conscious decision" not to participate in the design or promotion of the token.

The Ukrainian police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) recently dismantled a scam network that used a fake investment platform to steal cryptocurrency. This network disguised itself as an investment platform website, luring users to connect their main cryptocurrency wallets and approve a small test transaction when withdrawing funds. Subsequently, it used a "wallet stealer" hidden within the website to automatically transfer user funds to wallets controlled by the operators, kicking victims off the platform. Investigators have currently confirmed 62 victims, with over 46 Ukrainian citizens involved, and the network could steal up to $1 million per month.The police stated that the false profits displayed on the platform are part of the scam, with operators manually creating transactions and adjusting user account balances to create the illusion of investment growth. In addition to cryptocurrency, the platform also collected victims' passport information, phone numbers, email addresses, login credentials, and photos during the registration and identity verification process. The main organizer of the network is a 25-year-old IT expert who recruited over 46 Ukrainian citizens and operated multiple offices in Kyiv and surrounding areas, with members responsible for building and maintaining fake websites, contacting potential victims, and providing security.Victims come from multiple countries, including Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Israel. The police traced the gang's server equipment located in the Netherlands and obtained a database stored there, which included a list of victims, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, suspected stolen amounts, internal communications, and platform operation information. The Ukrainian police and SBU subsequently executed 34 searches in Kyiv and surrounding areas, seizing over 100 computers, more than 100 mobile phones, 79 SIM cards, documents, cash, and 15 vehicles.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury released an analysis and alert on Thursday, linking approximately $12.7 billion in suspicious financial activities to cryptocurrency investment scams operated by Southeast Asian parks. About 1,300 institutions submitted 33,904 suspicious activity reports covering the period from September 2023 to December 2025. Cryptocurrency-focused money service businesses submitted 55% of the reports, involving $5.5 billion; banks submitted 41%, involving $6.4 billion; and securities firms accounted for the remaining $784.5 million.The number of reports has been growing at an average monthly rate of 10.9%, with the amount involved increasing by 18%. Scammers used at least 22 types of digital assets, with Ethereum, USDT, and USDC being the most common. On-chain analysis shows that regardless of the asset victims initially purchased, the funds are almost always converted into stablecoins, with nearly all converted to USDT, and then transferred through DeFi protocols or exchanges outside the U.S. Scammers also reused collection addresses across multiple victims, which is one way some institutions identified this pattern.The report indicates that about 25% involved elderly individuals, which is comparable to the 24.4% of the population that is over 60 years old, leading FinCEN to conclude that the elderly are not disproportionately targeted. The FBI estimates that in 2024, the U.S. population over 60 lost $4.8 billion to scams. These parks are primarily located in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, and U.S. authorities have seized over $25 million related to the associated scams this year.

According to IT Home, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) has announced the results of the new anti-fraud operation "Jackal IV." This operation will last from November 2025 to June 2026 and involves 22 countries and regions worldwide, focusing on combating online financial crimes such as romance scams, cryptocurrency and investment fraud, email scams, and money laundering. A total of 58 people were arrested in this round of operations, and the identities of 263 individuals involved have been confirmed.Among them, the Argentine police seized a "Crime-as-a-Service" (CaaS) network that provided website domain and money laundering services, arresting 17 people and confirming the identities of 196 individuals involved. The South African police raided 7 locations in Johannesburg, arresting 39 suspects accused of romance scams and investment fraud targeting retirees from English-speaking countries, while seizing $2.67 million and freezing 257 bank accounts.In addition, the Italian police confirmed one suspect involved in a cross-European money laundering network, discovering that a single bank account was linked to money laundering transactions amounting to €845,000; the Romanian police dismantled an investment fraud gang, arresting 11 people and seizing illegal assets such as cash, cryptocurrency, and real estate.

According to EmberCN monitoring, the Trump Digital Gold (GOLD) scam team sold all of its held GOLD tokens around 2 PM today, totaling approximately 824.54 million tokens, accounting for 82.454% of the total token supply, with cumulative profits of about 9784.6 SOL (approximately 1.01 million USD).It is reported that GOLD was created on Solana at 7:38 today, and the related address controlled over 82% of the tokens through token distribution and purchases after the launch. Around 9 AM, the Trump merchandise collaboration account @realtrumpcoins1 posted a tweet containing the GOLD contract address, causing the token market cap to briefly surge to 66 million USD.Around 11:48, the tweet was deleted, and the related address immediately began to sell off its holdings. The market cap of GOLD plummeted from approximately 55 million USD to 1 million USD in about 30 seconds, and the scam operators continued to sell off, eventually liquidating all their held tokens. Currently, the market cap of GOLD has dropped to about 700,000 USD, shrinking by 99% from its peak.

According to a notice from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), scammers are frequently impersonating government agencies, banks, investment firms, utility companies, or tech support personnel to lure victims into transferring funds via cryptocurrency ATMs, gift cards, unfamiliar applications, or courier services. They exploit the irreversible nature of transactions and the difficulty in tracing address ownership to carry out their scams.Data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) of the FBI shows that in 2025, reported losses from scams involving cryptocurrency ATMs exceeded $388 million, a 58% increase from the previous year, with actual losses potentially higher due to underreporting.The CFTC states that legitimate government departments, financial institutions, and businesses will not ask users to transfer assets via cryptocurrency ATMs, gift cards, or courier services. If someone urges action by claiming "your account or identity is at urgent risk," or requests confidentiality, remote control of devices, or transfers to specified wallet addresses or QR codes, it should be considered a high-risk signal. Regulatory agencies recommend that users stop trading, independently verify information through official channels, and promptly report suspicious scams to the CFTC or FBI IC3.

On August 24, Binance co-founder He Yi posted that CZ does not use WeChat, and the currently very active WeChat group "Binance Mall" and CZ are both fake Binance and fake CZ conducting promotional activities. Please remind each other to be cautious of scams.

According to Bitcoin.com, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) disclosed that in the fiscal year 2026, over 19,400 online scams were removed (a year-on-year increase of 182%), among which cryptocurrency investment scam platforms reached 3,106, an increase of about 30% compared to the previous fiscal year.ASIC pointed out that scam groups are heavily leveraging generative AI technology to build a systematic fraud ecosystem: by using deepfake videos of well-known figures such as Australian Prime Minister Albanese and financial commentators to promote fake cryptocurrency trading robots, while simultaneously creating counterfeit media websites, AI-generated comments, and fake profit dashboards to lure victims into continuously increasing their investments, with funds ultimately flowing to overseas criminal groups. Just from the impersonation of high-profile individuals alone, the related losses have exceeded 7.4 million Australian dollars.

The Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office assisted 35 cryptocurrency ATM scam victims in obtaining full refunds totaling $171,332. The related funds stemmed from scam-induced transactions, and the refunds covered all fees.According to Arizona law, only new customers who have been dissatisfied with an ATM operator for less than 10 days are eligible for a mandatory full refund. Victims must contact the operator and law enforcement or the Attorney General's office within 30 days of the transaction date and submit an official report confirming the scam. FBI data shows that in 2025, there were 460 complaints related to cryptocurrency kiosks in Arizona, with adjusted losses of $14.53 million; nationwide, there were 13,460 related complaints, with adjusted losses exceeding $388.98 million, of which individuals aged 50 and above lost over $302 million.

According to CNA, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) reported that a cryptocurrency scam involving fake job postings and compromised software systems resulted in losses of $11.8 million.The scam group impersonated cryptocurrency company recruiters on LinkedIn, used forged domain names to send emails, conducted video interviews, and induced victims to download malware on company devices to complete "technical tests," thereby stealing session tokens, bypassing multi-factor authentication, and ultimately transferring cryptocurrency.

According to Cryptopolitan, cybersecurity company Malwarebytes discovered that a user on a cybercrime forum is selling a "scam toolkit" for $500, which can set up a fake $TSLA token presale website with almost no technical background required.The scam process is as follows: after visitors enter an X username, the page displays their real avatar to create the illusion of a "targeted invitation," combined with a countdown and price increase warnings to create a sense of urgency. If victims choose the "15% reward link wallet" option, they will be asked to enter a 12-word recovery phrase, resulting in their wallet being emptied; if they choose to "invest" directly, they must send cryptocurrency assets to an address controlled by the scammers, and then see a fabricated balance on a fake dashboard. The toolkit's control panel allows operators to track victims in real-time, collect recovery phrases, and check wallet balances in advance to decide whether to strike. Malwarebytes discovered this toolkit on May 16, and recently IRS and Ledger users have also encountered similar phishing attacks.

Binance New Zealand recently issued a security warning, reminding local users to be aware of the frequent SMS phishing scams that have emerged recently. Scammers impersonate Binance officials, using the lure of free cryptocurrency or event tickets, and falsely claim in the messages that their activities have been approved by the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA).Binance advises users not to click on any links in such messages and not to connect their wallets to suspicious platforms. Users can verify the authenticity of relevant contact information and websites through Binance's official verification tool "Binance Verify" to prevent asset loss.

According to Qilu Evening News, a new type of virtual currency "staking mining" scam has recently emerged. Scammers create a perfect persona through long-term friendships on social platforms, chatting with victims for one to two months to build trust. They then guide victims to switch to overseas private communication software such as WhatsApp and Discord, inducing them to download fake mining platforms and sign contracts for authorization. Using the asset transfer permissions from the contracts, they quietly transfer funds from the victims' accounts in the background.The scammers never mention sensitive words like "investment" or "financial management," packaging the scam as "idle computing power staking mining," claiming zero risk and stable returns, and using small rebates to entice victims to increase their investments. Currently, most victims are young people with side job needs, with known losses exceeding 3 million yuan, and the highest individual loss exceeding 300,000 yuan. Victims are spread across many regions of the country. Lawyers remind that virtual currency transactions are not protected by law, and any strangers on social platforms inducing a switch to overseas software or requesting wallet authorization for unfamiliar contracts should be regarded as scams. Do not make secondary transfers.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea has launched a three-month project to rebuild the fraud refund system with a budget of approximately 119 million won. This upgrade aims to align with the revised Telecommunications Fraud Damage Compensation Act, which will officially take effect on October 1, and formally includes virtual assets in the categories of "damaged property" and "refundable property."The new system will support the calculation of compensation amounts based on token types and quantities, using the value of the won at the time the funds were frozen as a reference benchmark, and will also have the capability to dismantle mixed fraud funds across multiple accounts. Major exchanges such as Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX will be required to undertake anti-fraud and victim relief obligations equivalent to those of banks, including verifying transaction purposes, monitoring suspicious funds, and freezing suspected accounts.

On-chain detective ZachXBT posted that U.S. threat actor Tiffany Milanovich participated in the theft of approximately $5 million in crypto assets by impersonating hardware wallet and centralized exchange customer service.Her methods included disguising as Bitcoin IRA email support, during one attack transferring about $1.2 million in BTC and ETH from the victim's Trezor wallet, and in another case stealing about $500,000 in BTC from a Coinbase account. Tiffany induced victims to hand over access to their funds under the guise of "customer service calls," later boasting about the stolen money on social media and Telegram groups, mocking victims with recordings, and collaborating with other threat actors to launder money using phishing panels and instant exchange services, with some of the stolen funds still dormant on-chain.The threat actor codenamed "Tiffany" is suspected of participating in multiple crypto asset thefts, gambling the stolen funds at crypto casinos. The platform Shuffle has frozen related accounts based on evidence submitted by ZachXBT; Tiffany previously shared a search and seizure warrant from Connecticut, dated before some of the incidents involved.ZachXBT has obtained chat logs, recordings, and on-chain evidence, anticipating that this individual may face further legal consequences. This threat actor is also linked to the John Daghita (Lick) case, who is suspected of stealing over $46 million in crypto assets from a U.S. government-seized wallet.

According to the Dongguan Release public account, the Dongguan Hengli police successfully intercepted a virtual currency investment fraud case, preserving 1.1 million yuan in cash just 5 minutes before the victim's offline transaction with the fraudster, thus avoiding significant economic losses.It is understood that the victim, Ms. Li (pseudonym), previously met an unfamiliar online acquaintance who lured her with "internal investment channels for virtual currency," promising low thresholds and high returns, and created a false impression of investment profits through forged profit screenshots. Subsequently, the fraudster induced Ms. Li to withdraw 1.1 million yuan in cash under the pretext of "needing to exchange cash for USD recharge" for payment. After discovering risk clues, the Dongguan police quickly activated the early warning interception mechanism, organized police forces to rush to the bank to dissuade her, and ultimately successfully prevented the fund transfer before the transaction.

According to Hong Kong 01, the Hong Kong police updated information regarding the virtual currency Fun Coffee scam, revealing that as of August 5, a total of 255 related reports had been received, an increase of 30 from earlier, with total losses rising to approximately HKD 104 million. In addition, the Macau police arrested two women involved in 9 cases amounting to about 3.6 million Macau patacas.Regarding TVB artists who have hosted activities related to the Fun Coffee scam, the Hong Kong police stated that during the investigation, they would definitely contact the victims and relevant individuals to identify the mastermind behind the scam and their roles. Fun Coffee claims to be a large coffee investment enterprise in Phu Quoc, Vietnam, with a capital scale exceeding USD 1 billion. It entered the Hong Kong market by the end of 2025, packaging its image through marathons, banquets, social events, distributing flyers, and inviting artists to promote it, while registering a company, opening offices, and stores in Hong Kong. The actual operation was to lure citizens into downloading the app to complete tasks under the guise of investing in high-tech coffee equipment, gene optimization technology, and agricultural equipment, using Tether (USDT) and other cryptocurrencies for deposits. The platform promised annual returns of up to 197%--278%, with higher returns for larger amounts and longer deposit periods, and set up a commission structure to encourage recruitment. In July 2026, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission listed it as a suspicious investment product. In late July of the same month, the app suddenly ceased operations, withdrawals became impossible, customer service went offline, and the offices and stores were vacated, leading to the collapse of the scam.

According to Bitcoin.com, a Bitcoin and Litecoin holder provided a 12-word mnemonic phrase to an attacker impersonating Trezor support, resulting in approximately $282 million in assets being transferred, including about $139 million in Bitcoin and $153 million in Litecoin. Blockchain forensics company ZeroShadow stated that the incident stemmed from a social engineering attack and was not due to a breach of wallet software or private key infrastructure.The stolen funds were split via the THORChain cross-chain bridge within minutes and converted to Monero through an instant exchange service. The ZeroShadow monitoring team flagged and froze approximately $700,000 in funds within 20 minutes. Under the BIP39 standard, a 12-word mnemonic phrase contains about 128 bits of entropy, while a 24-word mnemonic phrase contains 256 bits of entropy. Chainalysis estimates that up to 23% of mined Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible due to lost keys, involving millions of BTC, with reasons including forgotten mnemonic phrases, damaged backups, and lack of inheritance plans.