Police warn of cryptocurrency scams leveraging World Cup to target victims

Once payment is made, the goods would not be delivered, but the websites would be taken down. Recovering funds is often challenging, said the police.

Another scam targets victims searching for a way to stream World Cup matches for free. They may be redirected to phishing websites that prompt them to connect their cryptocurrency wallets, make payments or install malware.

These sites can compromise credentials, financial information or cryptocurrency assets, said the police.

“In some cases, AI-generated deepfake content featuring athletes or celebrities has been used to promote such fraudulent platforms, making them appear more convincing.”

The authorities also said that they have observed scam variants involving fake “official World Cup tokens” or fan coins fraudulently marketed as official or team-affiliated digital assets.

“Victims may be misled into investing in these tokens, whose value is artificially inflated before scammers sell off their holdings, causing prices to collapse,” SPF said.