Singapore, 16 Aug 2019… It has come to the attention of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) that a website has been soliciting investments in Bitcoins by using fabricated comments attributed to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.  The website attempts to impersonate a news page from a local media organisation. 

The information on the website is highly deceptive and misleading. The statements attributed to PM Lee are completely false. The site tries to get readers to provide credit card or bank account information. It also asks for payments into a purported Bitcoin trading platform, which would automatically initiate trades on the client’s behalf.

Members of the public are advised to exercise extreme caution and avoid providing any financial or personal information on the forms linked from the website. Anyone who suspects that an investment could be fraudulent or misused for other unlawful activities should report such cases to the Police.

In the past year, there have been numerous websites fraudulently using the names and photographs of Ministers and other prominent public personalities to solicit Bitcoin investments. Please refer to earlier advisories issued by MAS on 31 July 2019,  29 January 2019 , 19 September 2018 and 18 September 2018 .  

For more information on cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency investments, please refer to MoneySense’s consumer alerts .