scam

According to on-chain detective Specter monitoring, the attackers of this activity provided so-called arbitrage bot tutorials and code through YouTube videos, guiding victims to compile and deploy contracts using a counterfeit Remix development interface.The attackers registered an ENS name containing "Uniswap," disguising the related address as a legitimate source of income for DeFi activities, leading victims to mistakenly believe that the deployed arbitrage bot was profiting through Uniswap. After victims injected their own assets into the contract, the funds were transferred away by the attackers. The attackers currently seem to still be active and hold a significant portion of the stolen funds across two addresses.

According to on-chain analyst ZachXBT, the recently launched 10K PFP NFT project zkSNARKs on the Zcash chain is suspected of being a rug pull. The project attracted a total of 16,971 bids through a blind auction, ultimately settling at a clearing price of 1.5 ZEC (approximately $2,190) for 8,000 allocations, with a total transaction volume reaching 25,305 ZEC (approximately $36.94 million), and refunds of 13,309 ZEC (approximately $1.943 million) have been gradually returned.ZachXBT pointed out that the project raised about $17 million, while reserving 10% for the team, 5% for royalties, and approximately $2,000 for minting fees, yet it has no practical value, resembling the common "money grab and run" tactics used in the Ordinals series.

On-chain detective ZachXBT posted that the wallet address associated with 7zarc has received 4,870 ETH (approximately 15 million USD), with the funds originating from addresses related to the Raidparty project's approximately 70 million USD "exit scam." Subsequently, this portion of ETH was transferred to recharge addresses of several centralized exchanges.ZachXBT pointed out that 7zarc disappeared from public view in 2022 and only became active again in September 2026. Based on this, he publicly questioned the need for an explanation regarding the flow of the related funds.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang connected a call with U.S. President Donald Trump during a panel discussion at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday. Trump referred to the dangers of artificial intelligence as a "hoax" during the call.Trump criticized the push to slow down the development of artificial intelligence as being driven by political motives or a conspiracy from China. Huang agreed with the president's viewpoint, stating that Trump sees through the complexity of the issue.

According to Decrypt, MetaMask announced the launch of a new wallet protection feature in its mobile app and browser extension, adding warnings for similar addresses, investment and pig-butchering scams, as well as first-time transfer recipients, and providing a clearer transaction confirmation page on mobile and browser extension.Another feature, Added Protection, will automatically roll back transactions that do not match the preview, first launching in the browser extension, with mobile support to follow.

According to reports from Huigang Communications, in the past week, the Hong Kong police received over 40 investment fraud cases, with total losses exceeding 50 million Hong Kong dollars. One elderly man in his seventies received a message via WhatsApp from a stranger claiming to be a "cryptocurrency investment expert" from Singapore. Following the instructions, he opened a wallet and purchased USDT and ETH, then downloaded a counterfeit investment app provided by the other party and transferred his assets to a designated address.The fake app initially showed profits, prompting him to double his investment. It was only after being refused when attempting to withdraw that he realized he had been scammed, with losses exceeding 13 million Hong Kong dollars.

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.