Cryptocurrency scammers are utilizing deep pretend movies of Elon Musk and different outstanding cryptocurrency advocates to advertise a BitVex buying and selling platform rip-off that steals deposited foreign money.
This pretend BitVex cryptocurrency buying and selling platform claims to be owned by Elon Musk, who created the location to permit everybody to earn as much as 30% returns on their crypto deposits.
This rip-off marketing campaign began earlier this month with risk actors creating or hacking current YouTube accounts to host deep pretend movies of Elon Musk, Cathie Wooden, Brad Garlinghouse, Michael Saylor, and Charles Hoskinson.
These movies are authentic interviews modified with deep pretend know-how to make use of the particular person’s voice in a script offered by the risk actors.
An instance of one of many rip-off movies will be seen under, the place Elon promotes the brand new rip-off website and says he invested $50 million into the platform.
Nonetheless, in the event you look rigorously, you will notice that the deep pretend synchronizes the particular person’s speaking to the risk actor’s script, which is so foolish as to be comical.
How do we all know this can be a rip-off?
Whereas it’s apparent that the interviews have been altered to simulate Elon Musk’s voice to advertise the BitVex buying and selling platform, quite a few different clues present that this can be a rip-off.
Many YouTube channels selling this buying and selling platform have been hacked to abruptly present YouTube movies or YouTube Shorts that promote the BitVex buying and selling website.
For instance, a YouTube channel that displayed gaming movies in Arabic abruptly started displaying a sequence of YouTube Shorts that promoted the BitVex rip-off. As well as, BleepingComputer has discovered dozens of different YouTube channels hijacked equally to advertise this rip-off.
Supply: BleepingComputer
When you go to the BitVex buying and selling website itself, it turns into extra obvious that this can be a rip-off.
For instance, the location claims that Elon Musk is the CEO of the buying and selling platform and comprises endorsements from Ark Make investments’s Cathie Wooden and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
Supply: BleepingComputer
To make use of the BitVex platform, customers should register an account at bitvex[.]org or bitvex[.]internet to entry the funding platform.
When you log in, the location will show a dashboard the place you possibly can deposit numerous cryptocurrencies, choose an funding plan, or withdraw your earnings.
Like virtually all cryptocurrency scams, the dashboard will show current withdrawals of varied cryptocurrencies to make the location seem authentic, as proven under.
Supply: BleepingComputer
Nonetheless, these withdrawals are created via JavaScript, randomly deciding on one in every of 5 completely different cryptocurrencies (Cardano, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Ripple, or Binance Coin) and randomly producing withdrawal quantities. These pretend withdrawals are modified randomly on every web page refresh.
Supply: BleepingComputer
Fortunately, the rip-off doesn’t seem too profitable, with solely $1,700 deposits to the rip-off’s cryptocurrency addresses seen by BleepingComputer. Nonetheless, these addresses are probably rotated, so they may have stolen extra for the reason that rip-off launched.
A number of the cryptocurrency addresses used on this rip-off are listed under:
- Bitcoin – 16Ge7LhzpxHTSQLptSe4sptseVwDYU6gpN (Earned $1,280.82)
- Bitcoin Money – qpkrguy6ralp0pux390fr7pz2ugpq90s3uach9m42j
- Ethereum – 0x1087d3584AB80df8d14B4D7d5A2091C3Bb55eF2F
- Tether – TRh8zMBdcEEZdPBC6xkBmkd5SrpkRQEjWK
- Dogecoin – DDu1kVvtd9bc4jQ1uY7EUBBddmzTgjbsav
- Polkadot – 16keizqPvkS3uQ4Cad9vPNoQhbstKNqJtTG1Uk8i6mY8JNTL
Whereas it might be exhausting to consider that individuals would fall for these scams, pretend cryptocurrency giveaways and funding schemes are recognized to generate tens of millions of {dollars} for risk actors.
In January 2021, a pretend Elon Musk crypto giveaway rip-off earned $580k in just one week.
Much more just lately, an Ark Make investments-themed scam promoted on YouTube stole $1.3 million by simply re-streaming an edited model of an outdated reside panel dialogue on cryptocurrency with Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Cathie Wooden of Ark Make investments.
These scams have gotten so pervasive and worthwhile that the FTC launched a report warning that $80 million has been lost to cryptocurrency investment scams since October 2020.
Due to this fact, it’s important to acknowledge that nearly each crypto giveaway website is a rip-off, particularly these allegedly from Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, Ark Make investments, and Gemini that promise huge returns.
For those who see emails, tweets, movies, or different messages on social media selling a lot of these giveaways, do not forget that any cryptocurrency you ship is not going to produce something in return.
