Crypto fraud shock: Batswana lose millions to scams
Friday, June 03, 2022 | 5480 Views |

People walking in main mall. PIC: PHATSIMO KAPENG
The poor response comes as a report from the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) indicates a 400% increase in the value of suspicious transaction reports received last year, with cryptocurrency scams leading the pack.
Under the Virtual Assets Act passed in February, all operators of cryptocurrency and other virtual assets offering these within Botswana were required to have approached NBFIRA by May 31 or face fines of up to P250,000 and/or five years in jail, should they continue operating. The new law, which Parliament passed in line with anti-money laundering global best practice covers Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs).
That is indeed a welcome development, especially looking at the fact that the manual way of doing things is slowly disappearing and competency in the use of computers and other digital gadgets has become a must.The simple way of looking at it is just an example that almost all companies have gone completely digital and school leavers will be better placed after leaving school, because they will already be familiar with the use of computers.The...