A social networking site is a place where people from all over the world can share their thoughts, ideas, photos, funny videos and even stream their activity live for the entire world to see. Naturally, networks that daily have to handle millions of users, posts and red-flagged content is bound not to be a risk-free environment.
In this instance, Instagram unknowingly participated in a fraudulent activity, focused on banking services in Philadelphia and Montgomery. Josh Shapiro who is an Attorney General in Pennsylvania publicly disclosed information about the incident and indicated that three men are held responsible for attempting to find human resources via Instagram and tempting them into participating in illegal activities.
Apparently, the three suspected scammers created accounts in Instagram and uploaded bank logos into them. Then, the vicious trio encouraged the Instagram community to join them in a scam of swindling money. While this news is only surfacing now, appropriate authorities had been aware of this scam for quite some time now (ever since February to be more exact). Then, investigators contacted these three scammers and pretended to be ready to participate in their scam. Little did the scammers suspect that their every word was being heard by officers that would report everything back to higher forces.
The investigators heard everything from the primary sources. Shakour S. Smith, Ikeem M. Starks and Quadir J. Burley revealed all of their plans to the disguised officers. The participators in the scam were expected to provide the dangerous trio with information about their banking accounts. Of course, vicious people promised that participators would receive a part of the revenue for their efforts. The strategies were not that bad as scammers managed to steal 50,000 US dollars from financial facilities of Pennsylvania.
How did the scam work? As it appears, crooks were aiming to deposit fake checks into bank accounts and take out cash that belonged to innocent people. When the officer, pretending to be a potential participator in the scam, met with one of the hackers, it was explained that revenues would be split fifty-fifty.
The unfortunate trio are now to become responsible for conspiracies to commit theft by deception and a whole bouquet of other illegal actions. No matter how desperately you need money, you should never participate in criminal activities as they will surely have severe repercussions. If you spot similar offers in social networking sites, you could be the one to report them to the necessary authorities and save people from being lured into the web of deception. We would be very surprised that the trio planned to be decent partners-in-crime and actually share their profit with others. A more believable scenario that random participators would have been cheated as well.
Our recommendation is to be careful during your exploration of social networking sites. You can be exposed to fake articles, click-bait headlines, malicious attachments, disturbing live streams and, like in this case, offers to participate in illegal activities. If you notice some questionable material, make sure to red-flag it to be checked.
Source: attorneygeneral.gov
