Canadian police warned the public about frequent cases of fraud with Bitcoins.

According to the CBC, recently 40 residents of York were victims of cybercriminals and lost about 340,000 Canadian dollars ($ 267,000).

Fraudsters appeared to be employees of the tax service and threatened potential victims with arrest for unpaid taxes if they did not repay their debts through a bitcoin-ATM.

One of the victims named Linda shared her bitter experience. The criminals contacted her by phone and under threat of arrest insistently demanded to pay off the debt through the bitcoin terminal. Since before she had not heard of bitcoin, extortionists easily convinced her that the ATM was owned by the Internal Revenue Service of Canada and used to collect taxes. As a result, the victim transferred $ 12,000 to fraudsters, which they withdrew from their own bank account.

A police spokesman said that bitcoin-ATMs are absolutely legal and, perhaps, they will be able to track down intruders and return lost money.

The police reported that in recent months, the number of reports about such frauds with crypto currency increased. At the same time, the only way to prevent such crimes in the future will be to raise public awareness:.

First of all, our main strategy is not to let people become victims ".

To this end, the York police stationed flies near the bitcoin-machines with a warning of possible fraud.