ESTEVAN - The Estevan Police Service said on Jan. 23 they received a report of a person forwarding a significant amount of cryptocurrency into an investment opportunity. The individual later learned that several others have been scammed by this opportunity. This matter is under investigation.
Chief Rich Lowen said the crypto scam is no different than any other financial crime.
"It's just the exchange of currency and in this case, it was a cryptocurrency that was exchanged," Lowen explained.
An individual was contacted, enticed with an investment opportunity and chose to invest in the offer. Like with any kind of investment, Lowen said the EPS encourage people to make sure that they do their research on investment opportunities before sending any kind of currency, whether it's crypto or cash.
"Don't fall to any pressures or phishing scams or anything like that, random email contacts or anything along those lines. It is something where an individual has to do their due diligence prior to making any kind of investments," Lowen said.
While there was just one person that reported the loss in Estevan, the EPS also shared the information with the RCMP for them to further investigate within Saskatchewan and across Canada to see if there are linkages to the same suspects, and how it was transferred.
"It appears that there may have been some links to other files, but that's still under investigation," Lowen said.
There were several reports of cryptocurrency scams in Saskatchewan and in Canada lately. Lowen said that cryptocurrency is used as a scam because it has recently had such a wide fluctuation in its value.
"People look to make easy, fast money. And anything that's easy and fast, you should look at it as a red flag and start to do your research on why it's easy and fast, whether it's an actual existence or not. It's like any other scam, we try to get people to do their diligence to make sure that they're actually investing in something that's valid," Lowen said.
Lowen notes the EPS only had one other crypto currency fraud in the last two years, which came in 2022. The amount was under $5,000.
