Security Platform Identifies USDT Scam Syndicate on YouTube

Corporate Cyber Securities Solutions platform WhiteSecure has identified a USDT scam trend on YouTube. WhiteSecur’s discovered cases are in their thousands and suggest a growing pattern that could escalate if not controlled.

In a report on its website, the security platform noted that it discovered several fraudulent web-based apps posing as USDT investment schemes. The identified apps request investments from unsuspecting users, promising returns with values based on the amount invested.

According to WhiteSecure, culprits in this kind of scam have a few characteristics in common. They are major YouTube channels with significant numbers of subscribers and view counts. They operate by posting such fraudulent videos and generating inauthentic engagement boosts that trick YouTube’s recommendation algorithms.

Some of the culprits deployed automated systems in making copy-paste comments on their videos to make them appear legitimate. Even the description fields for such videos are uniquely configured, paying attention to the SEO style so that YouTube’s search system will not pick any fault in them.

During its investigation, WhiteSecure captured about 700 unique URLs participating in the fraudulent USDT scam exercise. A search by WhiteSecure on YouTube with the hashtag #usdminting returned 3,900 videos with similar characteristics. #usdminting is the hashtag associated with the ongoing fraudulent exercise.

A more detailed probe by WhiteSecure extracted several wallet addresses linked to the fraudulent apps. Transactions connected to the wallets exposed the possibility of many more apps and wallets involved in the scam, syndicate style. WhiteSecure numbered them to be in the thousands.

From analysis, WhiteSecure identified 900 victims across a series of transactions that accumulated up to $100,000 between July and November 2022. The transaction patterns show that thousands of wallets make minute, but multiple transfers among themselves, making it complicated to map out the flow operation among them.

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