Yellowknife woman warns of cryptocurrency scams after losing $26K
CBC
A Yellowknife woman says she is out $26,000 due to a cryptocurrency scam that involved a fake news story.
The woman said she wanted to tell her story to warn others of the kinds of deceptive fraudulent activities that exist online and how scammers are impersonating trusted institutions like news outlets to lure unsuspecting victims.
N.W.T. residents have reported losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various scams over the past four years, with a particularly large jump in 2021 amid the pandemic.
Jeff Horncastle, client and communications outreach officer for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, told CBC News in an earlier interview that since COVID-19, there has been an increase in financial crimes, particularly fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes.
In another earlier interview with CBC News, Kwasi Boakye-Boateng, a research associate with the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity, said artificial intelligence has also made scams harder to detect.
CBC News granted the woman confidentiality, due to concern she could be targeted in the future by more scammers.
The woman says she saw — and is still seeing — a number of what she now knows are fake news stories pretending to be from CBC, often featuring someone talking about investing in a cryptocurrency scheme.
Last summer, she saw many of them featuring fake interviews with former prime minister Justin Trudeau, former finance minister Chrystia Freeland and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, encouraging people to invest in cryptocurrency. She said she was skeptical until she saw Singh supposedly interviewed in one around July 2024, and then decided to reach out to the featured company.
A spokesperson for CBC News said there has been an alarming rise in fake ads and news stories appearing online and on social media platforms.
"CBC is committed to fighting disinformation, which deliberately misleads the public and puts at risk their trust in legitimate media outlets," wrote Kerry Kelly.
"This is an increasingly difficult task however, hindered by the rise in AI-generated disinformation and the prevalence of fake ads found on social media platforms."
The woman said when she first got in touch with the company, called Finlake Ltd., they gained her trust.
CBC News found a Facebook page for Finlake Ltd. and attempted to email and call them for comment. The number was not in service and the email was undeliverable.
The woman said she started by investing just $350, because she is an immigrant who wanted to send money to friends and family back home.
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