Submitted by nsscadmin on
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Canadians lost a reported $275 million to investment fraud in the first three-quarters of 2025. In Nova Scotia the reported losses to investment fraud were just over $2.5 million. It is estimated that only 5-10 percent of investment fraud is reported, so the actual investment fraud losses by Canadians could be closer to $5 billion, while Nova Scotian losses may be closer to $50 million.
Canadians need to protect themselves from investment fraud and the best way to do so is to educate themselves about the most common frauds. In Nova Scotia some of the most common frauds reported to our enforcement division include:
Pig Butchering
Deepfake Impersonation Scams
Website & App Spoofing
Pig Butchering scams have become a worldwide epidemic over the last five years, with billions of dollars being lost. That includes millions per year here in Nova Scotia. Do you ever get unsolicited message by text, messaging app, or on social media? These could be from someone trying to lure you into a pig butchering scam.
Scammers befriend strangers through unsolicited messages and after building trust try to convince their new friend to invest in crypto assets. Everything about a pig butchering scam is a lie. The person’s identity, the investment they recommend to you, the platform you’re investing on, and the massive profits being shown to you. None of it is real and it is costing Nova Scotians millions.
For a deeper dive into pig butchering scams read our previous blog post, and watch our short video and reel.
Deepfake impersonation scams have infiltrated all social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. The channels are being flooded with AI-generated deepfake videos that show a famous, often rich, influential person offering “can’t miss” investment opportunities. One of the most prominent deepfakes videos targeting Canadians right now depicts Prime Minister Mark Carney offering Canadians the opportunity to invest in Canada’s federal AI project. The video even directs to a very realistic looking government website that outlines the program and how Canadians can invest. Everything about this is fake. The video is a fake AI creation. The AI project and investment opportunity is not real. The website is completely fake and all lies.
For more information on deepfake impersonation scams read our previous blog post, and watch our short video.
Website and App spoofing is similar to deepfake impersonation scams in that fraudsters are mimicking something real. In this instance instead of mimicking a person, they’re mimicking a well-known financial website or app.
People are being directed to these spoof websites through phishing emails, texts, and messages, online ads, videos, and search engine optimized and targeted search results. Spoofed websites looked exactly the same as the pages they mimick. Often the only way to tell the difference is by looking carefully at the webpage’s URL in your internet browser. This can also be difficult as fraudster are making incorrect URLs hard to spot by replacing S with $, .com with .net, or inserting dashes or other hard to spot characters into webpage addresses.
When you visit a spoofed website, believing it to be the website of a real financial institution or investing platform, and enter your login credentials you are handing them to the fraudster. They can now use those login credentials to access your account and your money.
Fraudsters are also spoofing widely-used investment apps. If you are downloading a banking or trading app, ensure your download it from the App Store or PlayStore. Never download apps from a website, as they could be spoofed and not only steal your login credentials, but also infect your mobile devices and computers with malware.