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Scammers impersonate Elon Musk to run free BTC giveaway scam scheme

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On September 19, scammers were distributing bitcoins on behalf of Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX, on social media platform TikTok. The platform was flooded by videos that showed Elon Musk talking about lucrative cryptocurrency investment opportunities in interviews with Fox News. The sound in the videos was overlaid with AI-generated audio designed to mimic Musk’s voice. According to a recent report authored by Bleeping Computer, all scam schemes use a single pattern. Scammers pretend to be representatives of a well-known cryptocurrency investment platform. The TikToks in question contain links to fake crypto websites, which ask users to sign up and enter promotional codes posted alongside the videos. According to the scheme, this is necessary to receive bitcoins for free. After entering the code, the fake website creates a fake notification reading that the BTC transaction to the user's address has been completed. However, the scam website demands a fee of 0.005 BTC or $132 to withdraw the money. If a user transfers the "activation" fee, the scammers receive this money. The deceived user will never see the promised bitcoins, BleepingComputer warns. In addition, attackers request user information to undergo a KYC ("Know Your Customer") procedure. The collected data can be used by hackers to attack user accounts on other platforms.

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