China Business Journal warns of fraudsters demanding Bitcoin payments in impersonation scam

Scammers have found a creative new angle for crypto extortion: pretending to be Chinese state media. The China Business Journal, a publication with roots going back to 1985, issued a public warning on July 29 that fraudsters are impersonating its reporters to shake down companies for Bitcoin. The scheme works like this. Targets receive emails, often from Proton Mail accounts rather than official domains, claiming the newspaper has conducted undercover investigations and uncovered damaging information about their business. Pay up in Bitcoin, the emails say, or the negative reports go public. In a country where media operates under tight government oversight, a threatening letter from what appears to be a state-affiliated publication carries a particular kind of weight. That’s exactly what makes this scam so effective, and why the newspaper moved quickly to publicly dismantle it. How the scam operates The China Business Journal is published by the Institute of Industrial Economics within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It’s an established institution with more than four decades of history, which makes impersonating it a strategically clever move by bad actors. The newspaper w...