The people have been referred to by CertiK as “Professional KYC actors,” according to Cointelegraph.
According to blockchain security firm CertiK, cryptocurrency fraudsters are said to have access to people on the black market who want to affiliate themselves with fake projects for a fee of $8, as reported by Cointelegraph.
The people have been referred to by CertiK as “Professional KYC actors,” according to Cointelegraph, who want to win over the cryptocurrency community before an “insider hack or exit fraud.” According to reports, these Know Your Customer (KYC) actors have used identity theft to create exchanges or bank accounts on behalf of the bad guys.
Based on data provided by Cointelegraph in a blog post published on November 17, 2022, CertiK analysts discovered more than 20 underground marketplaces for the hiring of KYC actors for purposes like “to open a bank or exchange account from a developing country.” These marketplaces are hosted on Telegram, Discord, mobile applications, and gig websites.
The KYC actor’s affiliation with the name and face of a fake endeavor is a more expensive task. The market for KYC actor accounts was viewed as “marginal” in comparison to the market for already KYCed bank and cryptocurrency exchange accounts, despite the fact that it is believed that certain roles result in the actor receiving $500 per week if they played the role of CEO for a malicious project.
Additionally, according to Cointelegraph, CertiK issued warnings on 40 websites purporting to assess cryptocurrency projects and offer “KYC badges are “worthless,” as the services are “too shallow to identify fraud or just too unskilled to detect insider threats.”
The platform added that these websites’ personnel “without the necessary “investigation technique, training, and experience,”” which refers to the badges that con artists use to deceive the public and investors. As an illustration, in more recent events, French authorities used on-chain analysis to identify and prosecute those who stole non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through a phishing scheme.
