Owen “Hasheur” Simonin, founder and chief executive of French crypto platform Meria, has warned that scammers are increasingly posing as customer service agents from legitimate exchanges including Binance and Meria.
Simonin said the recent wave of data breaches in France was helping criminals identify cryptocurrency holders and discover which platforms they use. He said he had personally heard reports of fraudulent calls targeting customers.
“We’re going through a phase where data leaks are piling up in private companies as well as in the public sector: all these leaks intersect. That’s how we identify crypto holders and the platforms they use,” he said.
The callers typically claim that the victim’s funds are at risk. They then pressure them to make an immediate transfer, supposedly to protect their assets.
“If you panic and follow through, that’s where your money will goto their address,” Simonin said.
He urged crypto users to be suspicious of unexpected calls, particularly when the caller requests a transaction or personal details.
“A service won’t contact you out of the blue, unless you’ve reached out to them on a very specific issue. Even less so to ask you for a transaction or personal information,” he added.
Simonin also warned that the problem could become more widespread as artificial intelligence is adopted by criminal groups. Greater access to computing power, he said, would allow attackers to automate more scam calls.
The warning comes as France experiences a broader rise in cryptocurrency-related crime. Holders are increasingly being targeted in so-called wrench attacks, in which criminals use violence to steal crypto funds rather than attempting to compromise the underlying technology.
In August, France’s tax agency, the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP), disclosed a data breach that gave hackers access to information belonging to 678K taxpayers.
The incident is among a series of recent leaks affecting French citizens. Simonin said the combination of data exposed by breaches in both private companies and public bodies was making it easier for criminals to connect people with their cryptocurrency holdings and the exchanges they use.
Cryptocurrency networks rely on advanced mathematics for security, but criminal networks in France are increasingly attempting to bypass those protections through direct physical attacks, including the use of iron bars.
