Paris (AFP)

Investing in chloroquine and boosting its stake? Borrow money unconditionally to overcome the crisis? We must not believe these miraculous promises which demonstrate how the news stimulates the inventiveness of financial scams.

"A breeding ground" for scams: this is the summary of the economic and health crisis of the coronavirus for Benoît de Juvigny, secretary general of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).

He spoke on Friday at a joint conference between this institution and the Supervisory Authority and Resolution (ACPR).

Together, they monitor and regulate the entire field of investors and finance. As such, they fight in particular against financial scams against individuals.

These are bubbling with the crisis of the virus which gives many ideas to online scammers, between health concerns and economic anxieties in the face of a recession that promises to be unprecedented violence.

"These scammers are able to adapt very quickly to the news (...), knowing that behind, we always play on the same strings," said Dominique Laboureix, secretary general of the ACPR.

Thus, false online jackpots play on the desire of individuals to show solidarity in times of crisis. But the money, often promised to caregivers, goes into the scammer's wallet.

Regulators had already alerted in early May about this type of scam. Friday, they detailed other scams with different springs.

Some operate on fear of the future, while many French people have been forced into inactivity by containment measures against the virus.

Sites thus promise to the visitor to obtain a credit in less than 72 hours and without any condition.

"The objective (it is) to collect personal data", such as bank card identifiers, explained Nathalie Beaudemoulin, coordinator of the work between the ACPR and the AMF.

These data "will be used in scams or for improper solicitation", either directly by the scammer, or after being sold to another actor, she said.

- Whiskey stale -

The crisis has also given a new face to a classic scam, false investments in an original product and presented as the promise of miraculous gains.

Over the years, sites have offered to invest in diamonds or cow herds. But the individual never sees the product in which he is supposed to have invested and, generally, never recovers his stake.

"There is no investment, these are showcase sites," insisted Claire Castanet, responsible for the protection of savers at the AMF.

With coronavirus, no more diamonds or cattle: chloroquine is now touted by these fraudulent sites. This treatment of malaria is the subject of a highly publicized controversy as to its effects against the virus.

On the same principle, scams propose to invest in products like whiskey, which are not directly linked to the virus but touted as safe havens in the current context.

The case of whiskey is particularly perverse because the product is supposed to age for many years to gain value. "Victims will not quickly realize that this is a scam," said Ms. Castanet.

Finally, regulators have noticed a scam that seems to particularly threaten the youngest.

Sites offer training in a few hours in the trade of traders, an attractive promise to pull out of the game on world stock exchanges undergoing major upheavals since the beginning of the crisis.

These are in fact "pyramid sales", according to Ms. Castanet. Also known as a Ponzi scheme, this type of scam constantly requires recruiting new customers, before inevitably collapsing.

This wave of scams further degrades a context already marked by a multiplication of financial scams, even before the 2020 crisis.

Witness to this explosion, the "black lists" of fraudulent sites drawn up by the two entities: last year, they swelled by more than half with 500 new sites, and in 2020, more than 200 were added.

© 2020 AFP