Canadian residents fall victim to a cryptocurrency scam, with fraudsters using the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's insignia to carry out secondary fraud

A resident of Nanaimo, Canada, fell victim to a scam after receiving a text message promoting remote stock trading jobs and depositing about CAD 5,000 (approximately USD 3,600) through a cryptocurrency ATM at the end of last year. Earlier this year, the victim saw a message online disguised as an RCMP announcement encouraging fraud victims to report their cases.

After submitting a form, a person claiming to be a lawyer called, stating that they had found two cryptocurrency accounts related to the victim and could help recover about USD 60,000 in so-called profits. Gary O'Brien, a media relations officer with the Nanaimo RCMP, stated that the RCMP does not contact individuals regarding discovered cryptocurrency accounts, does not collaborate with private companies to recover lost funds, and does not request any form of payment to investigate fraud.

Andy Zhou, co-founder and CEO of blockchain security company BlockSec, stated that such tactics are known as "false recovery service scams" and have systematic characteristics. Scammers often possess victim information collected from the original scam, and organized fraud rings circulate lists of previously remitted victims, making these individuals targets for secondary scams.

The effectiveness of impersonating law enforcement brands lies in exploiting the psychological mechanism of "authority bias." Canadian police have been conducting cryptocurrency investigation training since 2022.

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