Cryptocurrency Fraudsters Targeting Top Trump Supporters

Donald Trump’s recent endorsement of cryptocurrencies has led to a wave of scammers targeting his loyal supporters.

Scammers using fake cryptocurrency websites and misleading donation centers are exploiting the loyal trust and attention of Trump’s supporters.

Trump recently announced that his campaign would accept cryptocurrency donations and was recently convicted by the federal government. Both of these events led to a huge surge in financial donations to the Trump campaign.

Netcraft, a London-based cryptocurrency cybersecurity company, has been monitoring a number of attacks surrounding the Trump campaign, following two recent developments in particular.

Netcraft discovered a fraudulent donation scheme masquerading as the Trump campaign. Some of these schemes involved misspelled websites, while others involved numerous fraudulent domains used for phishing and smishing activities.

Misspelled web domain

One of the main ways these scammers get their money is through slightly misspelled websites. Some domains were registered the day after the campaign was announced, including “donalbjtrump(.)com and doonaldjtrump(.)com,” per Netcraft. These websites have minor variations, such as a double “o” or “b” instead of a “d” in the name Donald.

These websites have cryptocurrency donation centers where unwitting supporters can donate money.

Netcraft reports that the scammers operating the domain are monitoring the current political process. When Trump’s conviction was announced on May 31, the conman quickly adjusted to reflect the Trump campaign’s “never surrender” narrative. It capitalized on the urgency of Trump supporters and potential victims.

“With the Trump campaign raising more than $50 million in 24 hours, it’s unclear how much money the criminals behind this scam raked in,” the Netcraft website said.

fake payment process

Donation scams use a variety of techniques to mimic legitimate cryptocurrency payment systems. The Trump campaign utilizes a Coinbase payment-based process that makes it easy to replicate the design.

Some phishing pages have been created impersonating Coingate and using cryptocurrency payment flows through Plisio and Oxapay. Netcraft also discovered donation scams that target traditional payment options, selectively redirecting users to the actual campaign website only when they select a non-cryptocurrency payment method.

sophistication of fraud

Scammers are exploiting the popularity of the Trump campaign by sending out mass emails and texts to trick potential donors into visiting fake websites.

Netcraft communicated with fraudsters posing as ‘National Trump Committee’ and obtained valuable threat information including bank account details, payment app information, email addresses and more used for money laundering.

These interactions revealed that criminals have advanced their skills by leveraging AI to create more sophisticated and persuasive scams.