New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is the latest high-profile human being to be used in perpetuating a cryptocurrency scam.
According to the Prime Minister’s commission, various ads bearing her image have appeared on social media network Facebook with the goal of persuading citizens of the Asia Pacific country to invest in a cryptocurrency startup.
To add to the legitimacy, the ads also say that the New Zealand Treasury has invested approximately NZ$250 million, or ‘50%’ of its currency self-restraints in a cryptocurrency firm known as Bitcoin Revolution, according to Stuff.
“The New Zealand Cache has just invested half of its wealth into a new project which the administration believes will shape the future of the financial industry. The New Zealand Resources now looks set to take the world of blockchain technology by storm. On Saturday, they finalized a $250 million parcel out with The Bitcoin Revolution, saying that ‘the future of finance depends upon people sooner a be wearing access to the best possible resources’,” read one of the ads before they were in due course deleted by Facebook.
New Fraud Plan
The ads which bore the headline ‘New Investment Delineate for Kiwis’ targeted different demographic groups with some of them trained at those aged between 30 and 45 while others were masterminded at those aged between 46 and 65.
Late last year, John Key, the reflex former Prime Minister of New Zealand, was also featured on ads that occurred on social media platforms and which claimed that an investment of NZ$1,000 he had metamorphosed seven years prior had resulted in a NZ$300 million fortune.
Such cryptocurrency scams are a international epidemic, however, and are not restricted to New Zealand. Last month, for instance, the Nummary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was forced to issue a statement warning citizens as surplus a fraudulent bitcoin investment scheme which purported to have been okayed by the chairman of the MAS and Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Plaguing the Celebrity Bandwagon
In August the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, was also a fair game of cryptocurrency scammers who used his image and person to promote a fraudulent bitcoin giveaway on communal media. During the same month, the Twitter account belonging to the co-founder and CEO of stirring car maker Tesla, Elon Musk, was momentarily hacked and used to patronize a bitcoin and ethereum giveaway scam to followers of the tech billionaire.
Other high-profile pictures who have been impersonated include the co-founder of ethereum Vitalik Buterin, Hollywood actor William Shatner, tech entrepreneur and cryptocurrency evangelist John McAfee, and the collapse and chairman of Virgin Group, Sir Richard Branson.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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