Background
The BtCIRT were reported of several scams in different social media platforms. Instagram reels are being circulated and are promoting “Earn money by investing sitting at home”. It asks for a “Investment of 10000 BTN” and earns a “Profit of 32000 BTN”.
Findings
Investment scams involve promises of big payouts, quick money or guaranteed returns. The reels are shown in figure 1 and figure 2, and the figure demonstrates the conservation of wechat scammers.
| Instagram Investment Scam page |
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Figure 1: Screenshot of Investment Scams in Instagram
Observation:
Instagram Reels is a new way to create, discover and share short, entertaining videos on Instagram. However, scammers also use those reels to lure the instagram users into a free money trap. Scams are with “Big payout”, the scam advertisement will normally create an excitement or eagerness for the people to invest. In this case it is creating excitement by saying that it will pay 320 times more than the amount invested.
Recommendation
- From the above stated observations it is most likely that it is an investment scam using Instagram as the platform. Always be suspicious of any investment opportunities that promise a high return with little or no risk, it is highly likely to be a scam. So, ignore the page and inform your families and colleagues about this scam. You can also report the account as spam in instagram.
- Bhutan Computer Incident Response Team (BtCIRT) also issued previously an advisory “Digital Investment Scheme and related Scams” on 27 January, 2022 in collaboration with OCP, MoEA , FICRT and RMA (https://www.btcirt.bt/digital-investment-scheme-and-related-scams/)