PANews reported on February 10 that according to Cointelegraph, cybersecurity experts said that some cryptocurrency data aggregation platforms were found to direct users to phishing websites when listing the so-called Central African Republic Meme Coin CAR. The official X account of Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra claimed that the government had launched an experimental token to "unite the people" and "support national development", after which the Meme coin attracted global attention. As of the time of writing, the project's X account has been suspended and its website has been closed.
Scam Sniffer founder “Fun” said that malicious links were found in Telegram groups linked from major data providers such as Coingecko. After being notified by Scam Sniffer, Coingecko quickly removed the reference to Telegram. The Telegram page contained a fake “Safeguard” robot, which Scam Sniffer identified as a phishing tool. Aside from a few announcements, links, and a mysterious message, the Telegram group was largely inactive. In addition to Coingecko, malicious links were also found on several other aggregators. SlowMist founder “Cos” found a suspicious link on the trading platform GMGNAI. Instead of directing users to the official website, the link led to a Linktree page that contained a live broadcast allegedly on the video streaming platform Kick. But according to Cos, the Kick link directed users to a fake CAPTCHA page that executed malicious code when interacted with by the user. The same Linktree URL was also promoted in Telegram groups.
As doubts grow over the legitimacy of the Central African Republic’s memecoin, a report from Cointelegraph has found that the account promoting the token by CAR President Touadéra appears to be an AI-generated deepfake.
