Fraudsters Target Businesses in Venezuela with Fake USDT Tokens

• Attackers avoid centralized exchanges and demand the use of wallets like MetaMask.
• It is technically possible to create worthless tokens and name them after any recognized asset.

Businesses in Venezuela are falling victim to a fraud scheme that uses fake tokens to simulate payments with the stablecoin Tether (USDT).

The alert was issued on September 15 by Venezuelan entrepreneur and influencer Juan Kassabji, who detailed the modus operandi employed by the perpetrators to steal merchandise by taking advantage of the technical ignorance of sellers regarding the functioning of cryptocurrency networks.

The main tactic of these malicious actors is to avoid centralized exchange platforms, such as Binance or Bybit. These companies integrate security mechanisms that filter and automatically reject illegitimate tokens.

To bypass this barrier --- as Kassabji explains --- the fraudsters request that businesses make transfers exclusively to self-custody wallets, mentioning recognized applications like Trust Wallet or MetaMask. By using these types of tools, the responsibility for verifying the authenticity of the asset falls solely on the receiving user.

Once the merchant agrees to operate under these conditions, the attacker sends a token named <>, but which lacks liquidity and has a real market value of zero.

At the time of purchase, the scammer quickly shows the screen of their device indicating that the transfer was successful. Upon seeing that the funds have entered their application, the seller hands over the merchandise without realizing that the balance received does not equate to US dollars.

The aforementioned entrepreneur exposed the case of a business that received a fraudulent transfer for a nominal amount of 5,545 fake tokens identified as <>. The scam consists of creating tokens named <>, just like the main stablecoin. Source: JuanKassabji -- X.

From a technical standpoint, the execution of this type of scam is feasible due to the open nature of smart contracts.

Anyone can create a token on a compatible network, issue as many as they want, and assign it the name or symbol of their preference, mimicking legitimate assets.

Currently, this procedure has been simplified through the use of platforms dedicated to the rapid creation of tokens like Pump.fun, which has been mentioned in several publications by CriptoNoticias. This is further supported by artificial intelligence tools that allow scammers to generate these functional imitations without needing advanced programming knowledge.

Since the transfer is executed correctly on the network, the transaction appears as completed in the wallet, even though the asset lacks backing and economic value.

The situation has sparked debates about the interface of decentralized wallets. Some users warned that applications of this type typically require the manual import of the smart contract to view new tokens, which should issue security warnings to the merchant.

However, Kassabji argues that the transfer does indeed reach the destination address and that the lack of education about the underlying technology is what allows the scam to thrive by bypassing those warnings.

To avoid such scams, it is essential for commercial operators to apply strict verification measures before releasing any product.

The fundamental action consists of checking that the address of the received token contract exactly matches the official contract of the issuing company on the network used.

Additionally, it is a quick method to review the total balance in fiat currency reflected in the application; if it is an illegitimate token, the overall account balance will remain unchanged, regardless of the number of fictitious tokens indicated by the received transaction.

It is worth clarifying that, although Juan Kassabji shows an example with USDT, scammers could generate tokens with any other name, such as <>, <>, <>, or any other. The scam modality is not necessarily limited to Tether's stablecoin. It could also be applicable anywhere in the world, so the recommendations mentioned are useful for any reader accepting payments in cryptocurrencies.