The innovation and financial protection department of California, commonly known as DFPI has recently issued a warning for multiple websites.
The warning is pertaining to websites pretending to be cryptocurrency service providers. The most alarming part is that the warnings have been issued against more than a dozen crypto websites.
The DFPI Issued Warnings against 17 Websites
The latest reports have confirmed that the warnings have been issued by the DFPI against 17 entities pretending to be cryptocurrency brokers.
In the warning, the DFPI has mentioned that it has reasons to believe that the particular websites are involved in running scams.
The regulator suspects that the sole purpose of their operations is to lure people and exploit their personal/private and financial information to exploit it.
If that is true, then the only purpose these impersonating brokerages have to fulfill is to steal the funds belonging to innocent investors.
The List Provided by the DFPI
The list carries a total of 17 cryptocurrency brokerage websites and the regulator has issued the warnings against them in a matter of two days.
This goes to show that scams pertaining to false and misleading cryptocurrency brokerages are on the rise.
A few of the cryptocurrency firms include ZC Exchange, VoyanX.com, Unison FX, Trade 1960, Tony Alin Trading Firm, Hekamenltd/Tosal Markets Limited, TeleTrade Options, and Tahoe Digital Exchange.
There is also a major global investment company known as Yong Ying Limited.
The regulator has revealed that among the list of brokerages, two are pretending to be high-profile protocols. These copycat websites include UniSwap LLC and eth-Wintermute.net.
The list carrying warnings against the 17 websites was published by the DFPI officials between December 27 and December 28.
The warning suggests that these brokerages may be involved in running scams. The regulator has also confirmed that these platforms are not registered to operate in the jurisdiction at all.
Therefore, they cannot offer services to the locals in California as they would need regulatory approval to make it happen.
Unusual Action Taken by the DFPI
It is important to mention here that the DFPI is not used to posting so many warnings against any kind of entity in such a short period.
This goes to show that the number of scams and fraudulent activities may have risen so much towards the end of 2022 in California that the regulator was forced to do it.
The regulator is used to carry out sporadic investigations against firms and companies. Therefore, it is a rare occurrence that the regulator issues a warning against so many entities in a single go.
It is obvious that the regulator may have received complaints against these entities towards the end of the year.
Therefore, it carried out its investigation and has doubts to believe that these websites may not be what they have claimed to be in the first place.
The only time the regulator had sent out warnings against multiple entities was back in June. At that time, the regulator had issued warnings against more than 26 entities.
Surprisingly, the warnings issued by the regulator back in June were against the crypto firms as well. Even at that time, the warnings were against the firms pretending to be legal and authorized entities which they were not.
Investors have Lost Funds
The DFPI has added in the warning that it has received several complaints from California locals about the websites.
They have complained that they have lost funds to the firms that are mentioned in the provided list.
According to the information shared by the regulator, the customers have lost from $2,000 to a high of $1.2 million to the websites.
Many users have claimed that they have lost millions to fraudulent websites, thus, warnings have been issued.
