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Crypto Fraudsters Target Stranded Seafarers With Fake Hormuz Toll Scheme

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Houston Man Sentenced to 23 Years Over Fake Gold- and Art-Backed Crypto Scheme

Scammers are exploiting the Hormuz crisis amid the US-Iran war. Greek maritime risk firm MARISKS issued the scam warning on Monday.

According to the firm, fraudsters posing as Iranian authorities are messaging shipping companies whose vessels are stranded, demanding digital asset payments for supposed “safe-passage” clearance. 

How the Scam Exploits Iran’s Real Crypto Toll Scheme

The scam draws plausibility from an actual policy announcement in Tehran. Iran recently stated that, during the two-week ceasefire, oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz would be required to pay tolls of up to $2 million in cryptocurrency.

Hamid Hosseini, spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, told the Financial Times that vessels must first submit cargo details via email to Iranian authorities. Following this, they will be issued a toll fee, reportedly payable in Bitcoin (BTC).

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The fraudsters weaponize that legitimacy. According to MARISKS, unidentified actors approached shipping companies with messages demanding transit fees in Bitcoin or Tether (USDT), in exchange for so-called “clearance.” However, the firm stressed that “these specific messages are a scam.”

Their messages mimic bureaucratic language, citing Iranian Security Services checks and pre-agreed transit windows to appear authentic.

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“After providing the documents and assessing your eligibility by the Iranian Security Services, we will be able to determine the fee to be ⁠paid in ​cryptocurrency (BTC or USDT). Only then will your ​vessel be able to transit the strait unimpeded at the pre-agreed time,” read the message cited ​by MARISKS.

The fraud may already carry notable consequences. MARISKS believes that at least one vessel fired upon on Saturday had paid scammers.

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Roughly 20% of global oil passed through Hormuz before the war. With hundreds of ships and around 20,000 seafarers now stranded in the Gulf, the disruption has created a broad and vulnerable pool of potential victims.

The scam adds to a broader surge in crypto-enabled crime. Industry data shows that April 2026 saw roughly $606 million in losses across 12 hacking incidents.

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Kevin Warsh’s Senate hearing: What to expect

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Fed Chair nominee Warsh: Fed extended its reach and stretched its hard-earned credibility

Kevin Warsh, former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Courtesy: Hoover Institution

Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh travels to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to convince lawmakers he can carry out a presidential push for lower interest rates while remaining free of political constraints in setting policy.

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In a much-anticipated hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, the former Fed governor will face questioning over a variety of subjects, from monetary policy to banking regulation to his own complicated personal finances

None likely will be more important than establishing the boundaries between the Fed’s decision-making and politics.

“He has a tricky communication question,” said Bill English, a professor at the Yale School of Management and the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2010-15, a period that overlapped with Warsh’s time there.

“I suspect that the way he’ll handle that is by being clear that his views are that rates can likely go lower, maybe a fair amount lower,” English said. “But at the same time, when asked directly about independence, be clear that he values independence. He thinks that independence is important and that a less independent Fed in the medium and long term would be a bad thing for the country.”

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Political independence has been a key question surrounding the search for a successor to current Chair Jerome Powell.

Warsh views on independence

In remarks he’s scheduled to deliver to the committee at the hearing’s start, Warsh issued a qualified endorsement of Fed independence.

“So let me be clear: monetary policy independence is essential. Monetary policymakers must act in the nation’s interest, their decisions the product of analytic rigor, meaningful deliberation, and unclouded decision-making,” he said in prepared text.

However, he noted that doesn’t believe independence is endangered when the central bank’s actions are questioned by elected leaders, and said “the Fed must stay in its lane” and not veer into “fiscal and social policies where it has neither authority nor expertise.”

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Fed Chair nominee Warsh: Fed extended its reach and stretched its hard-earned credibility

Warsh likely will face a bevy of questions about his political allegiance to President Donald Trump, who made no secret that a willingness to lower interest rates was a litmus test for his nominee. Trump nominated Warsh in late January, following a lengthy search process that included nearly a dozen candidates.

Congressional Democrats, including ranking member Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are expected to push the nominee on the independence question, as well as raise questions over his finances.

If confirmed, Warsh would easily be the wealthiest Fed chair in the central bank’s 113-year history. Disclosures filed ahead of the hearing indicate he would have to divest himself of a significant level of holdings to be in compliance with what have become strict Fed rules on where senior officials are allowed to invest.

Warren met with Warsh on Thursday and left with “deep concerns that if he is confirmed, he will be Donald Trump’s sock puppet.” She also alleged that Warsh had not disclosed “more than $100 million in assets.”

The nomination itself may take a while to get out of committee independent of any concerns about Warsh’s views.

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Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has vowed to hold up the nomination until an investigation is completed from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. into renovations at Fed headquarters. A court overturned U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s subpoena of Powell, but she has vowed to appeal.

White House officials are confident Warsh ultimately will meet the approval of the committee, where Republicans hold a 12-10 advantage.

“My expectation is that after everybody sees him in his hearing and sees how deft on his feet he is, how knowledgeable about the Fed he is, and how good his ideas are about returning the Fed towards a place where it’s nonpartisan, that it’s going to be hard to resist voting ‘yes,’” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Monday on CNBC.

Forging consensus

Once in office, Warsh will head a Federal Open Market Committee populated with officials who have expressed misgivings about the next steps in monetary policy. While markets expect the committee to be on hold the rest of the year, officials themselves still have penciled in a cut and Warsh has expressed support for lower rates as well.

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Warsh will “come in with an idea of what he would like to think about and do, and then the economy will deliver what we actually work on,” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said last week. “You work with the economy you have, and you plan for the economy that you’re supposed to achieve.”

As for his approach beyond rate-setting, Warsh last year called for regime change at the Fed and charged that current officials have a “credibility deficit” that he wants to fix.

English, the former Fed official, said his experience with Warsh was one who could work with others, a quality needed at the consensus-driven central bank.

“He was not somebody who was really difficult for the other policymakers or for the staff or for anybody to work with,” English said. “So I’m not sure he’s going to go in and really try to shake things up right away without moving the other policy makers along. To move them along, he’s going to have to be making arguments and making his case in a reasonable way.”

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Crypto Scam Targets Stranded Ships in Strait of Hormuz: Report

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Crypto Scam Targets Stranded Ships in Strait of Hormuz: Report

Fraudulent actors posing as Iranian authorities have reportedly sent messages to shipping companies whose vessels remain stranded west of the Strait of Hormuz, demanding payment in cryptocurrency for safe passage.

On Monday, maritime risk company Marisks issued a warning saying unknown groups had contacted shipowners claiming to represent Iranian security services and requesting transit “fees” in Bitcoin (BTC) or USDt (USDT) in exchange for clearance through the strait, according to Reuters.

“These specific messages are a scam,” Marisks reportedly said, adding that they do not originate from Iranian authorities. Tehran has not publicly commented on the claims.

The alerts come as the strategic waterway remains largely closed following the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global energy flows, previously handled around one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports before hostilities escalated in the region.

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Earlier this month, reports said Iran was considering charging ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz a tariff payable in Bitcoin, with empty tankers allowed free passage while others could be charged around $1 per barrel of oil.

Related: Iran views BTC as strategic asset, but USDt still dominates oil tolls: BPI

Crypto “transit fee” scam demands verification docs

The reported scam messages instruct recipients to submit documentation for verification before being assigned a “fee” payable in cryptocurrency, after which safe transit would allegedly be granted at a pre-agreed time.

In one example cited by Marisks, the message stated that Iranian security services would assess eligibility before determining payment in BTC or USDt, framing crypto transfers as a condition for unimpeded passage.

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Trump says he won’t allow Iran to impose tolls on ships. Source: The Middle East

The company also suggested that at least one vessel recently targeted by gunfire while attempting to exit the strait may have received such fraudulent instructions, though the information has not been independently verified.

Cointelegraph reached out to Marisks for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Related: Bitcoin community weighs in on reports of Iran’s crypto toll for oil ships

Crypto payments to Iran could trigger sanctions risks: Chainalysis

Shipping companies considering paying transit fees in cryptocurrency to Iran could face serious sanctions exposure, according to Chainalysis senior intelligence analyst Kaitlin Martin.

She told Cointelegraph that any payments linked to Iranian-controlled waterways could be treated as “material support,” potentially violating US and international sanctions targeting entities such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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