UK fears rise in cryptocurrency fraud due to Bitcoin's popularity – Bits Media

Royal Attorney Service of Great Britain (CPS) expects, that due to the rise in the bitcoin rate, the volume of cryptocurrency fraud in the country will increase sharply.

The Office recognized, what today 86% reported cases of fraud associated with cyberspace in general, not with digital assets. The situation was aggravated last year because of the pandemic of coronavirus, which forced ordinary citizens to switch to remote work, and scammers - "look for profit" on the Internet. According to the London Police, in the period p 2019 by 2020 a year in the UK and Northern Ireland received 27 187 complaints from the victims, injured from attackers on the Internet.

Of these only 5 581 The complaint was related to cryptocurrency investments, which is the fifth of all registered incidents, associated with cybercrime. The number of general cases of fraud for that period was 822,276. These include fraud with payments, investments, Bank cards fraud and hacker attacks. Crimes with crypto actures only have to 0.6% from the total number. It means, that despite the rapid development of the cryptocurrency market, The attackers have not yet mastered it fully, Preferring to use traditional and studied methods.

However, the head of the public prosecution department CPS Max Hill (Max Hill) reported, What a for 2020 year the number of cryptocurrency projects, deceiving users, It grew on 57%. Typically, the organizers of such cryptocurrency schemes promise to the potential investors a “fabulous” profit with minimal risks or their absence. Hill expects, that in the coming years the number of victims of cryptocurrency crimes will increase significantly. This may be due to the growth of the bitcoin course, to which even institutional investors began to show interest. Hill thinks, that the growth of the first cryptocurrency will “play into the hands” of fraudsters, who will take the opportunity to lure as many naive investors as possible.

Recall, that recently the British police with the assistance of the Europol arrested a group of criminals, stolen fiat currencies and crypto assets in the amount $100 million.