This incident, which occurred on September 25, 2023, once again revealed how brave and creative fraudsters can be in the field of cryptocurrency, given the popularity and influence of Allahbadia.

Allahbadia is known as an Indian content creator, entrepreneur and social media influencer. He is a personality who has reached 7.8 million subscribers with his channel BeerBiceps, 9.4 million followers with his personal channel and 1.2 million viewers with his podcast clips.

Thieves took over these channels and used a modified video recording of Elon Musk’s voice to conduct a livestream to encourage viewers to invest in a “double your crypto” scam.

To make these channels look like Tesla, scammers changed logos and usernames, deleted old content, and created the impression of a fake Tesla platform. In this way, they aimed to deceive viewers by offering fake cryptocurrency giveaways and fraudulent live broadcasts.

There have been many examples of previous scams where cryptocurrency scammers have defrauded unwary investors by impersonating Elon Musk and his companies, SpaceX.

This time, an interesting aspect of the fraud was that, in addition to Musk, images of United States Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump were also used. This was seen as an effort to capitalize on the excitement around the 2024 elections.

Since cryptocurrencies have become an important issue in these elections, fraudsters may have wanted to turn this situation into an advantage.

As of news time, the videos in question had been removed. However, some viewers on platform X reported that a live stream reached over 149,000 viewers at one point. The live streams also included QR codes that directed viewers to a fake website.

This website was branded as Tesla and promised a $100 million raffle. Users encountered an automated chatbot and received a fake statement stating that this giveaway was sponsored by Musk and Trump.

The website included wallet addresses for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Dogecoin, and it was promised that every cryptocurrency sent to these wallets would be returned twice as much. To make the situation even more believable, fake transaction history was shown; so viewers could think that other users were actually transferring their funds.

A similar fraud was carried out through fake channels during Apple’s “Glowtime” event on September 9. Malicious individuals aimed to deceive viewers by imitating official events.

Although the number of people affected by the scam is not yet clear, this incident is alarming due to the recognition of Allahbadia and the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency in India. Although Allahbadia has not made an official statement regarding the incident so far, it is clear that more attention and precautions need to be taken to prevent such scams.

This incident shows how well-known personalities can become targets in the digital world and how creative fraudsters can be. Since social media and digital platforms in particular create a basis for the spread of fraudulent activities, it is of great importance for users to be careful against such situations.