The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) today warns the public of seven entities suspected of engaging in fraudulent activities purported to be related to virtual assets (collectively, suspected entities). They are operating under the names of:
- XTCQT (Note 1)
- CEG (Note 2)
- BTEPRO (Note 3)
- Bitones.org (Note 4)
- Yomaex Crypto Market Limited (also known as “Yomaex”) (Note 5)
- Bstor (also known as “Bstorest”) (Note 6)
- Taurusemex (Note 7)
The SFC notes that the suspected entities purport to provide cryptocurrency trading services and some of them utilised social media platforms or instant messaging apps to refer investors to their respective websites to register as a user for investment in cryptocurrencies.
Investors have reported withdrawal issues with the suspected entities. In some cases, the suspected entities would claim money laundering activities or illegal funds were involved in investors' accounts and thus suspend withdrawals. Investors were required to pay exorbitant "fees" or "tax" for withdrawals or reactivation of suspended accounts.
One of the suspected entities, Taurusemex, also falsely claimed that investors’ accounts were regulated by the SFC.
At the SFC’s request, the Police has taken steps to block access to relevant websites. Notwithstanding the action taken, the public should beware that scammers may continue to create websites with similar domain names (Note 8).
The suspected entities and their respective websites were posted on the SFC’s Suspicious Virtual Asset Trading Platforms Alert List on 5 July 2024.
Online investment scams may involve any type of assets and are perpetrated through multiple channels, and investors may suffer substantial losses. The public should be cautious about too-good-to-be-true investment opportunities and advice posted on social media platforms and via instant messaging apps. Investors should stay vigilant and beware of fraud when making investment decisions.
Notes:
- XTCQT operates its website at hxxps://xtcqt[.]com.
- CEG operates its website at hxxps://cegapes[.]com.
- BTEPRO operates its website at hxxp://btepro[.]com.
- Bitones.org operates its website at Bitones[.]org.
- Yomaex Crypto Market Limited operates its website at www[.]yomaexd[.]com.
- Bstor operates its website at hxxps://www[.]zblyrej[.]top//#/ and hxxps://www[.]bstorest[.]com/h5.
- Taurusemex operates its websites at hxxps://taurusemex[.]com/int/#/ and hxxps://taurusemex[.]com/official/index[.]html.
- At the time the SFC requested the Police to block access to the relevant websites, the websites of the suspected entities, except for the website operated by CEG, were already inaccessible. Hence, the SFC only requested the Police to block access to the website operated by CEG.
