Australia is facing a sophisticated wave of cryptocurrency scams involving fake law enforcement operations.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed that scammers are impersonating officers and referencing fake cybercrime reports to trick individuals into transferring digital funds.
The fraud is marked by its strategic abuse of a legitimate online government portal, ReportCyber, which is supposed to help citizens report cybercrime.
The scammers exploit this official system to lodge false reports about targeted individuals.
Once the fabricated report is in place, they contact the victims directly, posing as police and referencing the bogus case to gain credibility.
They often guide victims to real government websites to review the reports, which makes the entire setup appear authentic.
This method takes advantage of the public’s trust in state infrastructure. Scammers are no longer relying solely on unsolicited messages or fraudulent links.
They are using actual government services to build elaborate layers of deception.
The goal is to make their claims seem verifiable, luring unsuspecting users into a false sense of security before attempting to extract their digital assets.
In a recent incident reported by the AFP, a scammer lodged a fake complaint on ReportCyber against a target. Shortly afterwards, the victim was contacted by someone claiming to be a police officer.
The caller explained that the victim was connected to a criminal case involving cryptocurrency. The victim was told to expect a second call from a representative of a crypto company who would confirm the story.
The second individual, also a fraudster, attempted to persuade the target to move their assets from one crypto wallet to another. The wallet address provided belonged to the scammers.
Fortunately, the target detected inconsistencies in the communication and terminated the call before completing the transfer.
AFP officials revealed that the tactics used in these scams closely mirror genuine law enforcement procedures.
Criminals involved in these scams fabricate stories about arrests, link victims to ongoing investigations, and imitate the language and steps used in real investigations.
This level of detail makes it difficult for victims to differentiate between legitimate contact and a scam.
The scams are structured in a way that allows attackers to escalate their approach using multiple actors.
First, a police impersonator initiates the contact.
Then a second person claims to represent a cryptocurrency firm. Both characters support the same fabricated narrative and provide false verification documents to solidify their credibility.
The AFP urged Australians to exercise caution. If anyone is contacted about a ReportCyber submission they did not make or authorise, they should disconnect the call and notify authorities directly.
Real officers will never ask for access to your crypto wallet, bank accounts, or sensitive financial information such as seed phrases.
The post Australia hit by new crypto scam tactic: criminals file fake reports to mimic police appeared first on CoinJournal.
A Chicago alderman blocked a proposal from a business that includes former police officers from opening a marijuana dispensary on the city’s North Side.
Chicago alderman won’t allow cannabis dispensary owned by ex-cops is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Forget the hounds. Police in China are releasing the squirrels.
Law enforcement in the city of Chongqing reportedly announced that it is training a team of drug-sniffing squirrels to help locate illicit substances and contraband.
Insider reports that the police dog brigade in the city, located in southwestern China, “now has a team of six red squirrels to help them sniff out drugs in the nooks and crannies of warehouses and storage units.”
According to Insider, “Chongqing police told the state-linked media outlet The Paper that these squirrels are small and agile, and able to search through tiny spaces in warehouses and storage units that dogs cannot reach,” and that the “squirrels have been trained to use their claws to scratch boxes in order to alert their handlers if they detect drugs, the police said.”
“Squirrels have a very good sense of smell. However, it’s less mature for us to train rodents for drug search in the past in terms of the technology,” said Yin Jin, a handler with the police dog brigade of the Hechuan Public Security Bureau in Chongqing, as quoted by the Chinese state-affiliated English newspaper Global Times.
“Our self-developed training system can be applied to the training of various animals,” Yin added.
The newspaper noted that in contrast to drug dogs, “squirrels are small and agile, which makes them good at searching high places for drugs.”
According to Insider, “China’s drug-sniffing squirrels may well be the first of their kind,” although “animals and insects other than dogs have also been used to detect dangerous substances like explosives.”
“In 2002, the Pentagon backed a project to use bees to detect bombs. Meanwhile, Cambodia has deployed trained rats to help bomb-disposal squads trawl minefields for buried explosives,” Insider reported. “It is unclear if the Chongqing police intends to expand its force of drug-sniffing squirrels. It is also unclear how often the squirrel squad will be deployed.”
China is known for its strict and punitive anti-drug laws.
According to the publication Health and Human Rights Journal, “drug use [in China] is an administrative and not criminal offense; however, individuals detained by public security authorities are subject to coercive or compulsory ‘treatment.’”
The journal explains: “This approach has been subject to widespread condemnation, including repeated calls over the past decade by United Nations (UN) agencies, UN human rights experts, and human rights organizations for the country to close compulsory drug detention centers and increase voluntary, community-based alternatives. Nonetheless, between 2012 and 2018, the number of people in compulsory drug detention centers in China remained virtually unchanged, and the number enrolled in compulsory community-based treatment rose sharply.”
“In addition to these approaches, the government enters all people detained by public security authorities for drug use in China into a system called the Drug User Internet Dynamic Control and Early Warning System, or Dynamic Control System (DCS),” the journal continues. “This is a reporting and monitoring system launched by the Ministry of Public Security in 2006. Individuals are entered into the system regardless of whether they are dependent on drugs or subject to criminal or administrative detention; some individuals who may be stopped by public security but not formally detained may also be enrolled in the DCS”
The Dynamic Control System “acts as an extension of China’s drug control efforts by monitoring the movement of people in the system and alerting police when individuals, for example, use their identity documents when registering at a hotel, conducting business at a government office or bank, registering a mobile phone, applying for tertiary education, or traveling,” according to the journal.
The post Chinese Police Enlist Drug-Sniffing Squirrels appeared first on High Times.
Officials in New Zealand announced this week that they have completed a massive seizure of cocaine at sea, calling it a “major financial blow” to producers and traffickers of the drug.
Authorities there said on Wednesday that the seizure was a part of “Operation Hyrdros,” with New Zealand Police working in partnership with both New Zealand Customs Service and the New Zealand Defence Force.
The announcement said that “no arrests have been made at this stage,” but that “enquiries will continue into the shipment including liaison with our international partners.”
Members of those units intercepted “3.2 tonnes of cocaine afloat” in the Pacific Ocean. NZ Customs Service Acting Comptroller Bill Perry said that the “sheer scale of this seizure is estimated to have taken more than half a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine out of circulation.”
(The news agency United Press International described the seizure as a “3.5 ton haul of cocaine with a street value of $317 million in a major anti-drugs operation carried out in the middle of the Pacific.”)
“Customs is pleased to have helped prevent such a large amount of cocaine causing harm in communities here in New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the wider Pacific region,” Perry said. “It is a huge illustration of what lengths organised crime will go to with their global drug trafficking operations and shows that we are not exempt from major organised criminal drug smuggling efforts in this part of the world.”
NZ Police Commissioner Andrew Coster called it “one of the single biggest seizures of illegal drugs by authorities in this country.”
“There is no doubt this discovery lands a major financial blow right from the South American producers through to the distributors of this product,” Coster said.
Coster added, “While this disrupts the syndicate’s operations, we remain vigilant given the lengths we know these groups will go to circumvent coming to law enforcement’s attention.”
The authorities said in the announcement on Wednesday that “eighty-one bales of the product have since made the six-day journey back to New Zealand aboard the Royal New Zealand Navy vessel HMNZS Manawanui, where they will now be destroyed.”
It is believed that “given the large size of the shipment it will have likely been destined for the Australian market,” according to the announcement.
Coster said that Operation Hyrdos “was initiated in December 2022, as part of our ongoing close working relationship with international partner agencies to identify and monitor suspicious vessels’ movements.”
“I am incredibly proud of what our National Organised Crime Group has achieved in working with other New Zealand agencies, including New Zealand Customs Service and the New Zealand Defence Force. The significance of this recovery and its impact cannot be underestimated,” Coster said.
“We know the distribution of any illicit drug causes a great amount of social harm as well as negative health and financial implications for communities, especially drug users and their families,” Coster added.
The announcement said that Coster noted that the “operation continues already successful work New Zealand authorities are achieving in working together and continues to lessen the impacts of transnational crime worldwide.”
New Zealand Defence Force Joint Forces commander Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour said that his unit “had the right people and the right capabilities to provide the support required and it was great to work alongside the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Customs Service.”
“We were very pleased with the result and are happy to be a part of this successful operation and proud to play our part in protecting New Zealand,” Gilmour said.
The post New Zealand Officials Seize Half a Billion Dollars Worth of Cocaine appeared first on High Times.
A fantastic resource to help organizations train, educate, and help their stakeholders how to avoid scams.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has set out to teach law enforcement officers in Uzbekistan how to conduct crypto and dark web investigations. The regional body recently organized a training course for employees of the country’s security agencies in Tashkent.
Representatives of Uzbekistan’s Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Security Service have taken a training course on cryptocurrency and dark web investigations held by the OSCE between Oct. 17 and 21 in the capital Tashkent.
The course was organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department in co-operation with the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan and the Academy of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the intergovernmental security body said on its website.
“Participants learned about the main concepts and key trends in the areas of internetworking, anonymity and encryption, cryptocurrencies, obfuscation techniques, dark web, and Tor networks,” the announcement detailed.
They also practiced various approaches and methods for seizure of crypto assets, blockchain analysis, and darknet searching. The course was based on materials provided by the European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG).
A new computer classroom donated by the OSCE to the Prosecutor General’s Academy was inaugurated before the course by Deputy Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan Erkin Yuldashev and Acting OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan Hans-Ulrich Ihm.
Digital technologies have been transforming the criminal landscape, noted Evgeniy Kolenko who heads the Prosecutor General’s Academy. He insisted that educating law enforcement in this field needs a long-term and systematic approach.
“Cybercrime education requires adequate equipment – both hardware and software,” added Gayrat Musaev, Head of the Academy’s Department for Implementation of Information and Communication Technologies and Information Security. Musaev also praised the new dark web lab.
The OSCE course is the first of this kind in Uzbekistan within the second phase of the “Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia” project funded by the U.S., Germany, and South Korea. Similar training activities will continue across the region throughout 2022 and 2023.
This year, the government in Tashkent has been taking steps to more comprehensively regulate Uzbekistan’s crypto sector. In the spring, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev issued a decree providing definitions for terms like crypto assets and exchange. New registration rules for crypto miners were presented in June and earlier in October, Uzbekistan introduced monthly fees for crypto companies.
Do you think law enforcement authorities in Central Asia will continue to increase focus on the crypto space? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
Law enforcement agencies in Germany have targeted Hydra, a leading darknet market (DNM). As part of an operation conducted with U.S. support, the German police were able to establish control over the servers of the Russian-language platform in the country and take down its website.
Hydra Market, one of the largest marketplaces on the darknet, has been shut down by German authorities which seized its server infrastructure. According to an announcement by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), law enforcement agents also confiscated bitcoin worth around €23 million ($25 million). The following message appeared on Hydra’s website on Tuesday:
BKA carried out the raid together with the Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt which is leading the investigation against Hydra’s operators and administrators. They are wanted for running illegal online platforms facilitating the trade of drugs and money laundering.
The German police noted that Hydra had been active since at least 2015 before the seizures which came after extensive investigations by the BKA and ZIT. They started in August last year and were conducted with the participation of several U.S. agencies.
The darknet marketplace, which was accessible via the Tor network, was targeting Russian speakers. It had around 17 million customers and over 19,000 registered sellers, the press release detailed. Besides banned substances, these also offered stolen data, forged documents and digital services.
Hydra became a major darknet market after overtaking another Russian platform, DNM Ramp. According to the data compiled by the blockchain forensics company Chainalysis, the region of Eastern Europe sends more digital currency to darknet marketplaces than any other region.
Washington has been alleging Moscow’s involvement with malicious cyber actors like DNMs, ransomware groups and other crypto-related crime. In September, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Russia-based crypto broker Suex which is believed to have received more than $20 million from darknet markets like Hydra.
The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions against Hydra and a crypto exchange called Garantex. The trading platform, which has been operating mostly out of Russia, is suspected of processing over $100 million in transactions linked to illicit actors and darknet markets, including $2.6 million from Hydra.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against a Russian resident, Dmitry Pavlov, for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The 30-year-old Pavlov is allegedly the administrator of Hydra Market’s servers.
German law enforcement officials think that Hydra was likely the darknet market with the highest turnover globally. BKA and ZIT have estimated that its sales reached at least €1.23 billion in 2020 alone. They also noted that the investigations were hampered by the platform’s own ‘Bitcoin Bank Mixer’ service.
Do you think other darknet markets will be targeted after Hydra? Let us know in the comments section below.
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