Scammers impersonating CySEC representatives to fool investors

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has again warned investors to beware of individuals fraudulently presenting themselves as CySEC officers to scam them out of supposed fines, and even setting up a fake website to convince them.

CySEC said it has identified “persons fraudulently presenting themselves as CySEC Officers or representatives, who are soliciting investors for fees in exchange for allegedly settlement of bogus compensation claims related to firms under CySEC supervision” and “fraudulent impersonation of the CySEC website (cysec-regulatory.com and www.cysecgov.com) which include the CySEC logo, announcements, images and email addresses.”

It also warned of another fake website (Cysecs.group) which contains a link to a fake List of Approved Cyprus Investment Firms and contains several links to unauthorised or scam brokers.

It reiterated that CySEC never makes contact by telephone or sends unsolicited correspondence and does not request personal data, financial or otherwise, and urged investors to contact CySEC to confirm the authenticity of communications by contacting info@cysec.gov.cy before taking any action.

“Genuine emails from CySEC include addresses ending in gov.cy - although there have been cases where fraudsters have also cloned these as well,” it added. “CySEC has no authority or jurisdiction to collect fees for any purpose from individual investors, nor does it have authority to appoint anyone to do so on its behalf.”

In addition, it does not authorise, verify, monitor, or is in any way involved in class actions, compensation schemes, payments between natural or legal entities or any public or private agencies.

“CySEC has issued multiple public warnings when similar cases occur, which are published on its website at: https://www.cysec.gov.cy/en-GB/public-info/warnings/cysec/”

CySEC’s investor guide on how to spot scams can be found here here

“CySEC urges the public to remain vigilant regarding any unsolicited communication from CySEC, to refrain from giving money to anyone who claims any or all of the above, or similar.”