French authorities are grappling with an alarming rise in crypto scams, resulting in estimated annual losses of €500 million.
Financial fraud continues to cause serious losses for French consumers. The Paris prosecutor’s office estimates that victims lose at least 500 million euros every year.
In a press release on Thursday, December 26, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers announced that the average loss for victims of financial fraud in 2024 was 29,000 euros. Many of these scams targeted crypto investors, with fraudsters using fake celebrity endorsements and investment platforms, the regulator said.
“Fake videos and press articles are used to recreate the physical characteristics of celebrities, sometimes using artificial intelligence.” These celebrities then inadvertently reveal the source of their wealth, which they acquired thanks to what turns out to be a supposed crypto-asset trading offer turns out to be a complete fraud.”
The Authority of the Marchés Financiers
Although the number of complaints has fallen, possibly due to compensation schemes and law firms’ pooling of cases, French authorities are still cracking down on fraudsters, according to the AMF. Since 2022, the AMF and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution have blacklisted nearly 5,000 unauthorized market participants, the press release said. Both have also worked to block nearly 350 fraudulent websites.
In November 2023, an AMF study showed that more French people own crypto than stocks or exchange-traded funds. The survey found that 9% of people own cryptocurrencies, compared to 7% who own stocks and…
