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Homepage > News > Finance > Austrian bust $1.3M ‘crypto’ fraud; phishing scam targets Ledger Austrian police have busted a crime ring alleged to have defrauded over $1.2 million worth of digital assets and other valuables using fake cash, giving a long-running scam a ‘crypto’ twist. Elsewhere, scammers are targeting Ledger users with a spoofed email and coercing them to surrender their recovery phrases. Rip-Deal 2.0 in Austria Police in the capital, Vienna, have uncovered a criminal network they allege is behind a scam that defrauded over €1.2 million ($1.26 million) from investors, mostly in digital assets. A majority of the victims were Austrian. Local outlets report that the mastermind behind the operation is a 39-year-old Dutch man with Serbian roots. The unnamed suspect is already serving a three-year sentence after he was arrested in Milan earlier this year in an operation that involved Europol. The scammers introduced a digital currency twist to a classic scam known in Austria as “Rip Deal.” Traditionally, the scheme involved using counterfeit cash to purchase high-value items, such as gold watches, and reselling them for real cash. However, in “Rip Deal 2.0,” the scammers bought digital assets with fake cash. Austrian police have been pursuing the scammer for well over three years. One detective spearheading his manhunt has been working with dozens of victims, all of whom were scammed by the Dutch suspect and his cronies.  In one instance, an Austrian businessman narrowly missed out on losing $137,000 to the scammers after his daughter, a police officer, recognized the tell-tale signs of a Rip-Deal. The scammers had convinced the man to deposit the money into a digital asset wallet as payment for an industrial machinery deal.  According to the lead detective, scammers usually invite their victims to luxury hotels abroad, with payment almost always being made in digital assets. They would…

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Filed under: News - @ December 27, 2024 2:02 am