In a major victory for investor protection, Australia’s financial regulator has dismantled a vast network of cryptocurrency scams.
In latest crypto news, Australia’s financial regulator has announced the removal of 615 cryptocurrency investment scams over the past year as part of a larger effort to combat investment fraud schemes.
On Monday, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) reported that it has taken down over 7,300 scam websites since July 2023, with 615 of those linked to cryptocurrency.
According to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, investment scams led to approximately $1.3 billion in losses in 2023. Sarah Court, Deputy Chair of ASIC, shared:
Scammers are criminals targeting the hip pockets of hard-working Australians – they don’t discriminate, and they use sophisticated techniques to steal information and money.”
ASIC also revealed that it shut down a significant crypto scam website, Dexa Trade Markets, which falsely claimed to be internationally regulated with substantial trading volume and millions of investors. The takedown occurred within an hour of ASIC’s referral of the site to a takedown provider.
Crypto investment scams continue to pose a major challenge for regulators. Recently, a ruling in Australia highlighted that over half of crypto-related ads on Facebook were either scams or violated Meta’s policies, as reported by The Guardian.
Meanwhile, Google is facing a lawsuit from a Florida woman who alleged that she lost $5 million to a scam crypto app downloaded from the Google Play Store, which took three months to be removed.
