A high-profile case of internet fraud has occurred in Uzbekistan. Famous Uzbek entrepreneur, founder of the companies MyTaxi and Express 24, Akmal Paiziev, reported that scammers created an almost exact clone of his account on Telegram to deceive one of his friends and extort a large sum of money.

Paiziev explained that two months ago, his acquaintances started receiving messages on Telegram from someone impersonating him, urgently requesting cryptocurrency. Initially, he thought his account had been hacked, as his nickname was being used.

The businessman noted that several people contacted him, and he explained that those messages were not from him, after which he no longer paid much attention to the situation. However, a few days ago, his classmate from Stanford informed him that he had checked the nickname and sent $50,000 in cryptocurrency.

«It turned out that the scammers used a capital ‘I’ instead of the letter ‘l’ in the fake nickname. Later, I realized that all my contacts had been compromised through the TextMe app, which I used to get a U.S. number for receiving calls and verifications on all internet services,» the entrepreneur explained.

Paiziev warned users that it is now easy to fake profiles, photos, videos, and voices, and recommended verifying the identity of a contact by voice, asking questions, or recalling moments that were not documented.

This case highlights the dangers associated with cyber fraud and the need to be vigilant in online communication, especially when it comes to money. Scammers are using increasingly sophisticated methods of deception, including creating fake accounts that can look almost identical to the original ones. It is important to always verify the authenticity of requests, especially if they involve financial transactions.

It is worth noting that recently in Uzbekistan, a 20-year-old man was arrested for impersonating well-known businessmen and fraudulently extorting money from their employees and acquaintances.

In addition, we previously reported the story of a cleaning lady from Tashkent, on whom scammers took out online loans totaling 180 million soums.

The text has been translated by AI. For more accurate information, please refer to the Russian version of the article.