Singapore Bank Issues Crypto Scam Warnings on Fake Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Investment from Two Websites

Singapore Central Bank Warns About Site Promoting Crypto Scam

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is the central bank of the country, has recently issued a statement warning the people of the country about a scam that uses the name of the bank. The scam sites are allegedly using comments that are falsely attributed to Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the chairman and Deputy Prime Minister of the central bank.

According to the bank, the statements are false and the whole thing is a scam. The bank has affirmed that, despite the affirmation that crypto trading in Singapore is low, all of what is affirmed by the site is not true at all. Because of this, the financial authorities of the country are urging the citizens not to give any kind of financial information for the scammers or use Bitcoin or credit card to pay them.

The sites are Gulf Weed Crab and Positive Bath Hour and they use hoax stories to attract investors. One of these stories states that the chairman of the bank was behind a state-sponsored project that invested $1 billion USD in Bitcoin. The other site contained false information about a “hi-tech” digital investment made by the government.

Singapore’s central bank has affirmed that the sites were fake and distanced itself from them saying that the statements were completely fake.

The Scam

Both of these sites used the false information to seek funds from the investors. They should sign up for a “Bitcoin account” and use their money to invest. The warning from the bank stated that this kind of unlawful activity should be referred to the police, though.

At the moment, Singapore has a permissive stance on cryptocurrencies but it is also prudent, specially with investments that look like scams. According to the reports, the bank and some politicians are monitoring the crypto space and are decided to use a stricter regulation if they believe that it is needed to protect the consumer in the country.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has previously noted that investing in cryptos is risky and Tharman said that citizens from the country could “lose their shirts” investing in cryptos, but neither has made a move to stop the people from investing in the market other than urging people to contact the law whenever a suspicious offer appears.

While Singapore was considered a crypto haven following China’s crackdown on cryptos, the authorities are getting increasingly interested in regulating the activity to oppose scams and money laundering in the country.

ICOs Are a Concern

Another concern of the bank is the popularity of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) in the country. At the moment, the company has already notified 8 crypto trading platforms for their unhelpful stance on ICOs.

The bank also halted an ICO at this time by claiming that the sale violated securities laws of the country because the tokens represented an equity ownership of the companies and the company was not registered in any way with the authorities. The authorities of the country are still studying whether further regulation will be needed or not to stop scams.