Scammers masquerading on YouTube as the world's richest man, Elon Musk, duped unsuspecting viewers out of £194,000.
Tens of thousands of people tuned in to watch the videos on four different days in June, with many of them being deceived into transferring crypto to the scammers' wallets, believing they would receive a prize from the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) (Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)) chief executive.
YouTube has been under increasing scrutiny for failing to stop several cyber-criminals from capturing accounts and promoting false crypto giveaways.
Musk claimed YouTube was not preventing or tackling “scam ads,” while the online video sharing platform insisted it removed all channels reported.
In around a week, the criminals received 23 transfers of Bitcoin – totalling 7.69 coins – and 18 transfers of Ethereum – totalling roughly 5 ETH.
The hackers changed the name and picture of many YouTube channels, so they looked to be the official Tesla accounts.