The Weyburn Police Service is again reminding residents to be wary of potential bitcoin scams. This comes after they received a report last week of someone who had a significant amount of money taken from their account.  

The incident reported to police saw the victim requesting a withdrawal of bitcoin from their service provider. The provider then asked the victim for their banking information, stating they required it to deposit the money into their account. The victim then discovered they were out of the money.  

Last month, a warning about the potential losses involved in Bitcoin scams was given by the officers of the WPS. Constable Preston Roy, at the time, shared his thoughts on these scams.  

"It's heartbreaking," Roy stated. "People work hard for their money and everyone is just trying to do better in life, so it's hard to see this happen. Now we're doing the best that we can to investigate and try to determine who's behind the keystrokes on the other side of this scam, but often these scammers are quite sophisticated and sometimes operate from across the world. It can be difficult to determine who was behind it." 

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency scams can often be difficult for investigators to trace, as cryptocurrencies, by their nature, are meant to be difficult to trace. The anonymity behind Bitcoin provides very little for cybercrime investigators to follow.  

"The unfortunate thing with Crypto Currencies is that they're not regulated or backed by government or central banks," Roy added. "Investing in or having crypto holdings in online wallets won't have the same safeguards like you'll find with a bank. Normally we can work with a bank to gain access to certain information or to stop certain processes, but we can only do so much with Crypto." 

The WPS is reminding residents that investment opportunities should only be carried out with registered and regulated financial institutions. Also, be mindful of the red flags often involved in these scams, such as high returns with little or no risk, high pressure or manipulation tactics, often phrasing the offer as one only available for a limited time, a requirement to provide personal or financial information such as bank account numbers, or the allure of “insider” information.