EU watchdogs warn scammers are posing as crypto firms and regulators: FT

Several EU regulators — France's AMF, the EU's ESMA, the Dutch AFM, and Belgium's FSMA — report a surge in scammers impersonating their own staff to intercept assets from clients of crypto firms forced to wind down EU operations after the July 1, 2026 MiCA deadline.

The scheme exploits the transition mechanism itself: companies that failed to secure a license must cease operations or transfer them to a licensed player, forcing customers to move their assets — and that's exactly when scammers reach out, posing as regulator or exchange staff, and direct victims to fake websites or accounts controlled by criminals. ESMA said it's aware of its identity and logo being misused, including through falsified documents; a separate category of scheme involves fake "asset recovery" services promising to help victims get already-stolen funds back.

“It's an opportunity for scammers more than usual.”

— Stéphane Pontoizeau, AMF (Financial Times)

• 323 licensed crypto firms were listed in ESMA's register by the end of the transition period
• Over 1,700 unlicensed firms are expected to wind down or exit the EU market
• Global crypto scam losses hit $17 billion last year, up from $6 billion five years earlier

This directly continues a story we covered earlier today: regulators had already warned about scammers impersonating licensed platforms with fake websites mimicking legitimate CASPs. This new wave of the same story shows attackers aren't just targeting individual platforms — they're going after the reputation of the watchdogs themselves, meaning the old rule of "check the platform's license" isn't enough anymore; you also need to be skeptical of a call claiming to be "from the regulator."

This piece is informational, not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.