Cybersecurity experts from Kaspersky Lab have issued a warning to the cryptocurrency community about the emergence of a new fraudulent referral pyramid associated with Telegram messenger’s commercial projects. Scammers are enticing users by claiming that they can earn a substantial amount of Toncoin tokens simply by sharing referral links.
These scammers are promoting a “super secret booster bot” and referral links as the magical keys to earning Toncoin. The victims are encouraged to invest their money in purchasing a “booster” tariff and then invite friends to join the project using a referral link. Supposedly, they will receive passive interest in Toncoin from the investments made by the people they invite.
To get the “profitable project” started, victims are instructed to initially buy anywhere between 5.5 to 501 TON on a legal P2P market, crypto exchange, or through the official Telegram bot. After that, they are asked to deposit their digital assets into the wallet of the booster bot, which is actually controlled by the scammers. The attackers then prompt them to choose a booster tariff, such as “bike,” “car,” “train,” “plane,” or “rocket,” to “start earning TON”.
According to Kaspersky Lab experts, once the digital assets are transferred to the booster bot account, the choice of tariff plan becomes irrelevant as the assets will be lost forever. In order to make the scam seem more legitimate and attract more “potential partners,” the scammers have recorded training videos in both Russian and English, in addition to providing detailed instructions and numerous explanatory screenshots.
For instance, victims of this deception are instructed to create closed groups on Telegram, where they post educational videos about the “money-earning” scheme along with their referral links. The abundance of these videos on the internet indicates that a significant number of people have already fallen victim to this fraudulent scam.
In January, Marco Ruiz Ochoa, the founder and former CEO of IcomTech, a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in luring investors.