Recently, con artists pretending to be Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman started a fake cryptocurrency called memecoin to trick investors who didn’t know what was going on. The Saudi Law Conference’s hacked X account spread the fake coin, dubbed the “Official” Saudi Arabia memecoin (KSA). This made people think it was a real project.
The hacked account was used to spread false information.
The scam started on February 17 when an X account pretending to be the Saudi Crown Prince announced that the KSA memecoin was going live. The Saudi Law Conference originally ran the account, but scammers gained access to it. As soon as the fake news came out, the conference confirmed the breach and made it clear that any content shared from the hacked account did not represent the views or affiliations of the conference.
Warning Signs and Red Flags for Investors
There were numerous indications that the KSA memecoin was not genuine. Smart investors were skeptical right away because there was no official government support, no clear explanation of how tokens work, and no use case given. It was found that the token’s smart contract had been made on the Solana-based memecoin launch site Pump.fun on February 10, seven days before it was said to have been “officially” announced. Even though the crooks worked hard, the coin didn’t catch on, and its market capitalization only reached $7,489 at the end of the day.
A trend of crypto scams based on celebrities
Fraudsters are using the names of famous people in scams like this one, which is a worrying trend. Elon Musk and former U.S. President Donald Trump have also been involved in similar schemes where hackers used their power to push fake cryptocurrency projects. One recent event was the quick fall of the Libra (LIBRA) token, which was backed by Argentine President Javier Milei but lost over 94% of its value after insider wallets took a lot of money.
Keeping an eye out for crypto scams
When thinking about investing in memecoins linked to famous people, experts say to be careful. “Don’t invest based on hype alone,” says blockchain expert Anndy Lian, who stresses how important it is to do a lot of study. If a project isn’t clear or has weak support, that’s a big red flag.
Scams involving cryptocurrency are always changing, so buyers need to make sure that new tokens are real before putting money into them. Even though fraud plans are getting smarter, doing your research is still the best way to avoid losing money.
