Belgian Finance Watchdog Ups List of Suspected Crypto Scams to 131

Belgium's financial sector regulator has issued a fresh warning over suspected cryptocurrency scam websites, bringing its running list to 131 domains.

On Tuesday, the Financial Services and Markets Authority added 9 domains – including bitcoinmarketscap.com, bitcointraderspro.com, coinsmex.com, crypto-sfs.com, etc-markets.co, fisherih.com, ltc-markets.com, stsroyal.com and tdscapitalgroup.com – to the list of crypto trading platforms with "signs of fraud."

The update comes following reports from Belgian consumers who fell victim to the scams, the agency said.

The FSMA noted that the anatomy of such frauds continues to be the same, with scammers promising riches in easy steps, regardless of prior knowledge of cryptocurrencies. But, it warned, "In the end, the result is always the same: the victims find themselves unable to recover their money!"

The regulator says frauds continue to occur, regardless of its past warnings.

The domains have not been shut down or blacklisted by the regulator. While this has occurred in the past – for example, coin mixing service bestmixer.io was shuttered this past spring by numerous European authorities – the FSMA does not have the ability to shut down sites it suspects of fraud.

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