JAKARTA, June 1 – Trend Wire. In Bali, cases of crypto fraud against foreign tourists, including Russians, have become more frequent – attackers offer a “profitable” USDT exchange via Telegram, and then disappear with the money or show fake payment confirmations, representatives of the Russian diaspora on the island told Trend Wire.
According to the agency’s interlocutors, such schemes are especially common among foreign remote workers and tourists who actively use cryptocurrency for payments and exchanging money for Indonesian rupees.
“Fraudsters find clients through Telegram chats for expats and tourists in Bali, offering a USDT rate that is noticeably more profitable than the market rate. After transferring the cryptocurrency, they either disappear or show a fake banking application with an allegedly sent transfer,” Russian Valentin, who lives on the island, told Trend Wire.
He noted that in some cases, attackers show tourists fake screenshots of bank transfers or applications that are visually indistinguishable from the interfaces of large Indonesian banks.
“Victims see a notification about a successful payment and transfer cash or confirm a crypto transfer, but the money never arrives in the account. Most often, the victims are Russians who are in Indonesia for the first time and are not familiar with the local banking system,” Russian Igor Belekov, who became a victim of a similar scam in Bali in March of this year, told Trend Wire.
Source: Ria