Crypto Scammers are allegedly acting as the government officials and asking people to make payments in Bitcoin (BTC) or different payment methods.

New York's Police Department (NYPD) has granted a warning about the phone scams to the public and has mentioned that scammers have already stolen millions of dollars by acting as Social Security Administration (SSA) officers.

As per reports shared by NYPD, Cryptocurrency scams involving bad actors faking as government officials have increased a lot. Moreover, NYPD unveiled that it has received more than 200 complaints this year which reports having losses of over $2 million. However, NYPD mentioned that it had received only 3 complaints in 2018.

Regarding this matter, Nilda Hofmann, who is the Chief of Community Affairs stated:

"Sophisticated phone scams use the trust victims have in their own governmental and law enforcement agencies against them. Victims of this type of phone scam are not limited to senior citizens – these criminals are targeting every strata of society and every demographic is vulnerable."

Hoffman further mentioned that the NYPD has been jointly working with its partners in the financial sector. She also stated that police officials are dedicated in investigating the matter and will charge criminals for their illegal actions.

Hoffman advised that “if you even suspect a call to be fraudulent, don’t take a chance, just hang up.”

Scammers facking as government officials have been calling suspects and telling them that their social security number was utilized without their consent to open different bank accounts. Several victims were also told that their government-IDs were being used in illegal activities such as drug trafficking or money laundering.

A large number of people were being tricked into thinking that their social security number is being misused, the scammers said them to transfer a large sum of money to solve the matter. As per NYPD, the scammers acted as "law enforcement officers" or "police officers" and use threats and issue threats in order to get victims to conform.

Scammers have taken help of a technology known as "spoofing" to exploit caller IDs to display phone numbers of the Social Security Administration and other agencies. At times, they have been used the name of real officers, the NYPD said.