On 7/16/2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an alert regarding a high-profile scam that uses Twitter accounts to solicit fraudulent payments denominated in convertible virtual currency. In their release, FinCEN explains that hackers compromised the accounts of financial institutions, organizations, and even public figures to solicit payment to vertual currency accounts. The scam claimed that any virtual security sent to the wallet address provided by the hacked accounts would be doubled and returned to the sender.
The alert provides a number of red flags for financial institutions to help detect, prevent, and report potential suspicious activity related to this scam. In addition, FinCEN requests that any SARs filed related to this scam include the key term “FIN-2020-Alert001” in SAR field 2 (Filing Institution Note to FinCEN) and include in the narrative an indication of the connection with the suspicious activity and the activities highlighted in the alert.
The FinCEN alert can be found here.
