New York Attorney General Letitia James recently froze $2.2 million worth of crypto allegedly plundered in an employment scam.
James says in a new press release that scammers targeted New Yorkers and other victims across the nation looking for remote work and sent texts falsely promising lucrative and flexible jobs.
Instead, they allegedly tricked victims into buying stablecoins and depositing them into controlled accounts.
The Office of the New York State Attorney General notes that scammers told victims the jobs required them to review products online.
“The victims were then told that to earn money, they had to open accounts with a number of registered and licensed cryptocurrency platforms and had to maintain a cryptocurrency account equal to, or greater than, the price of the products they were reviewing. The victims were assured that they were not purchasing the products but that the account balances would help ‘legitimize’ the data they were generating and that they would get their original payment back plus commission. Victims were also instructed to create and connect a crypto wallet to their working accounts to receive their compensation.”
Victims purchased the two leading dollar-denominated stablecoins, USDT and USDC.
James says she’ll notify the scammers of impending litigation by depositing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into the wallets used to steal the victims’ crypto. The New York attorney general says she would be the first state or federal regulator to serve a lawsuit that way. The lawsuit also seeks to recover the funds lost by defrauded New York residents.
Says James,
“Deceiving New Yorkers looking to take on remote work and earn money to support their families is cruel and unacceptable… I urge all New Yorkers to be cautious of text messages from unknown senders claiming to offer jobs or other opportunities, and to report any scams to my office.”
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