Temasek CEO used as endorsement in Facebook crypto ad scam

A fresh round of fraudulent Facebook crypto ads have surfaced featuring the image of investment fund manager Ho Ching in an attempt to scam users, according to a report from Singapore news outlet The Straits Times.

Ms Ho Ching is the CEO of Temasek, a Singaporean investment firm with over $300 billion worth of assets under management.

The fraudulent ads claim that Singapore’s OCBC Bank has called on Ho Ching to stop giving out “money-making secrets” related to cryptocurrency investments.

One particular scam advert states:

“Ho Ching urged everyone in Singapore to jump on this amazing opportunity before the big banks shut it down for good.”

Naturally, Ho Ching has never made recommendations of this nature, describing the scammers as creating “fake breathtaking quotes from me”.

The adverts also feature logos from national and regional news outlets to appear legitimate while promoting get-rich-quick schemes in return for personal and credit card information.

The ads have apparently been circulating for a few months, previously focusing on Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – Ms Ho Ching’s husband –  as a professional endorsement.

Many of the ads seem to centre around a service called “Bitcoin Pro”, falsely claiming that users have made over $9,200 in profit in the space of a month.

What does Facebook do about scam ads?

After Facebook lifted its controversial cryptocurrency ad ban earlier in the year, scams have proliferated on the platform, many using the likeness of prominent figures to gain users’ trust.

In January, New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key was shown in a similar scam, seemingly promoting a “revolutionary Bitcoin home-based opportunity” to make money.

Earlier this month, Coin Rivet reported that Dutch billionaire media tycoon John de Mol had sued Facebook for its inactivity in removing Bitcoin scam ads featuring his image.

Ruling in de Mol’s favour, Dutch authorities claimed that Facebook played an active role in approving such adverts on its platform, and it was unreasonable for Facebook to take so long to react to fraudulent ads.

However, Facebook has been an easy platform for scammers to target for well over a year now, consistently failing to remove content which could defraud its users and with no clear commitment from Facebook to tackle this growing issue.