Scammers using former Singapore Prime Minister’s name to solicit bitcoin investments

Hacks • July 31, 2019, 4:45AM EDT
UPDATED: July 31, 2019, 4:53AM EDT
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A website in Singapore has been soliciting investments in bitcoins (BTC) by using fake comments from the country’s former Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central bank, announced the news on Wednesday, stating that the website, Bitcoin Loophole, asks visitors to make a minimum initial deposit of $250 for initiating trades on their behalf. It also asks for credit cards or bank accounts details.

The website’s content mentioning comments of Goh, who is currently a senior advisor to MAS, are “either false or have been taken out of context and used in a misleading way,” the central bank said.

MAS further said that there had been other websites as well in the past that fraudulently used names and photographs of ministers and other public personalities to solicit bitcoin investments, and has advised the public to exercise “extreme caution.”

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Yogita Khatri profile picture Yogita Khatri

Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block and the author of The Funding newsletter. As our longest-serving editorial member, Yogita has been instrumental in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With over 3,000 articles to her name, Yogita is The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Before joining The Block, Yogita wrote for CoinDesk and The Economic Times. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her latest updates on X at @Yogita_Khatri5.

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