The Victoria Police Department is speaking up about crypto-investment scams after a multi-department operation which police say revealed more than 1,100 victims of cryptocurrency fraud worldwide and an estimated collective loss of $35 million.
According to the Delta Police Department—which hosted the initiative in mid-September—“Operation DeCloak,” involved blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, cryptocurrency exchanges, RCMP, the BC Prosecution Service, the BC Securities Commission, BC Financial Services, and the Vancouver and Victoria’s police departments.
Victoria police spokesperson Griffen Hohl said this is effecting local people, with roughly 46 cryptocurrency files being initiated in Victoria and Esquimalt in 2024.
Fraud has always been around, but these cases are becoming increasingly complex. Investment scams involve tricks to make a target develop trust in a fraudulent situation.
“We’ve even seen where they’ve created fake dashboards where investors—it looks like they can see their investment go up, so they are incentivized to put more and more money in. And then eventually it turns on them, and they aren’t able to withdraw their money and then they are out hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Hohl said his department has tons of educational resources to help prevent fraud.
He was on CFAX 1070 to discuss this topic with Al Ferraby today: