Instagram users with stolen pics drive illegal crypto scheme

Lately, it has become widespread to see people stealing pictures from other people’s Instagram pages and creating fake profiles. It became a nightmare for Jason Sallman to search for his name and find more than a dozen fraud accounts pretending to be him while pushing crypto scams.

Sallman posts content including images of Bitcoin and defines himself as a crypto-evangelist. After searching for Sallman, you will see many different accounts on Instagram using his pictures and some variations of his name.

Sallman calculates he found more than 550 imposters. He says that finding and reporting those imposters to Instagram feels like a full-time job. 

Sallman also said that the process of reporting, reviewing the report, and finally eliminating the profile takes days.

Imposters permanently stole pictures of Sallman and his family. Once, imposters even tagged the wife under a fake account post. 

He commented on this, saying that the title they put on the post always sounds creepy, and imposters try to make it up by themselves.

Imposters and victims

Once, when Sallman posted a picture taken at CNBC’s interview with producers, scammers reposted the picture tagging the network’s employees filming with Sallman.

The stolen picture issue seems more significant than merely a copyright violation. Sallman told CNBC that many victims of the fraud accounts appear several times per week requesting him to return their money. He added he receives threats daily from these people promising to kill him.

Sallman decided to put CNBC in contact with a victim of one of his account scammers. This victim agreed to speak while hiding his name because of fears that the scammer with his personal information might punish him.

The resident of Texas said one of the impersonators convinced him to invest $500 on a platform. When he tried to withdraw, he lost $20,000 in the scheme.