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This study aims to, firstly, develop a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes and, secondly, to test this red flag checklist against publicly available marketing material for Mirror Trading International (MTI). The red flag checklist test seeks to establish if MTI’s marketing material posted on YouTube^® (in the form of a live video presentation) exhibits any of the red flags from the checklist.

The study uses a structured literature review and qualitative analysis of red flags for Ponzi and cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

A research lacuna was discovered with regard to cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme red flags. By means of a structured literature review, journal papers were identified that listed and discussed Ponzi scheme red flags. The red flags from the identified journal papers were subsequently used in a qualitative analysis. The analyses and syntheses resulted in the development of a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes, with five red flag categories, containing 18 associated red flags. The red flag checklist was then tested against MTI’s marketing material (a transcription of a live YouTube presentation). The test resulted in MTI’s marketing material exhibiting 88% of the red flags contained within the checklist.

The inherent limitations in the design of using a structured literature review and the lack of research regarding the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme red flags.

The study provides a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes. The red flag checklist can be applied to a cryptocurrency investment scheme’s marketing material to establish if it exhibits any of these red flags.

The red flag checklist can be applied to a cryptocurrency investment scheme’s marketing material to establish if it exhibits any of these red flags.

The study provides a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

News items like “A whopping 2 lakh gullible investors were cheated…….” amply illustrate the extent of problems and hardships caused by financial frauds related to Ponzi schemes, collective investment schemes (CIS), unregulated deposit schemes, etc. In India, over the years, many Ponzi and unregulated investment schemes have taken place, causing huge economic and financial loss to Indian economy. This paper aims to examine why investment such schemes like Ponzi schemes and CIS become popular, how such schemes got operated in different periods and what could be done to safeguard the interests of investors.

The analysis is done based on secondary data and research work of various researchers, organisation and institutions, which are available in the public domain.

This paper has tried to analyse various characteristics of such fraudulent schemes, like their modus operandi, promotional activity, background of promoters and legal process involved in recouping financial loss of millions of investors. This paper also examines the demand-side factors that are responsible for popularity of those schemes in India. Noting the regulatory changes and other initiative taken by regulatory authorities to control the supply of unregulated investment schemes, this paper indicates potential actions, which could be undertaken to make people aware about the risks and issues related with such fraudulent schemes.

This paper gives an overview about various aspects of unregulated investment schemes, which have duped numerous people at different point of time. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research work is original and has not been published in any other journal.

Most scientific research has focused on understanding Ponzi schemes from the point of view of the schemes and their operators, based on qualitative analysis. This paper aims to analyze Ponzi schemes from the perspective of their investors, emphasizing behavioral aspects, which have been little explored in the scientific literature, especially in quantitative research. In this way, the authors sought to understand the effects of heuristics and cognitive biases in understanding investor behavior.

A logistic regression was carried out with Brazilian investors, some of them participants in Ponzi schemes, who answered a structured questionnaire by means of a survey.

The authors found that social pressures, overconfidence and deliberate ignorance lead to credulity, generating little risk analysis and the desire to make a lot of money quickly.

Helping investors improve their levels of information through financial education and self-knowledge about their behavior. Contribute to the competent authorities in the search for improvements in the information displayed to investors.

Understanding the mechanisms used when making a financial decision from the point of view of investors in general, but especially those exposed to Ponzi schemes, has the mission of enlightening them about the importance of financial education and the weight of psychological factors so that they can reduce the effects of heuristics and analysis biases when faced with a financial decision.

The basis of this work will be the inclusion of psychological variables and financial education, adapting existing models in an attempt to demonstrate the effects they may or may not have on mental accounting in the specific case of investors

The purpose of this study is to identify the significant demographic and socio-economic characteristics of individuals who are likely to invest in a fraudulent investment scheme. It also quantifies the extent to which financial literacy helps in reducing the odds of investments in such schemes. Based on these findings, it provides policy recommendations to regulators and governments.

This study uses nationally representative data from the “India Assessment of Financial Capability 2018” survey. It further uses logistic regression with a binary outcome variable to assess the individual-level odds of investments in fraudulent investment schemes.

This study concludes that males between 40 and 59 years of age, who are well-educated (are at least graduates), score low in financial literacy, belong to the middle-income group, and SEC A3 households are most vulnerable to victimization by financial fraudulent investment schemes. It finds that financial literacy significantly reduces the odds of investment into fraudulent schemes to the extent of 39.118%.

This study quantifies the extent to which financial literacy helps in reducing the odds of individual investments in a fraudulent investment scheme. As financial literacy has a significant and negative relationship with the likelihood of investment in such schemes, this study provides policy interventions and recommendations to regulators and governments to safeguard the interest of individual investors.

Pyramid schemes create an unusual situation, where the victims might be effectively turned into offenders, as their role is to recruit more victims to the pyramid scheme. This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of pyramid schemes, their modern forms and why people join them.

This paper has developed from a structured literature review carried out as part of a wider study into policing pyramid schemes.

This paper identifies a range of reasons why people join pyramid schemes. Some of these reasons are “participant dominant”, including the vision of high reward for little work and the attraction to a better lifestyle. Other reasons are “organiser dominant”, including the exploitation of specific groups and high-pressure sales. These findings suggest significant differences in levels of culpability of pyramid schemes victims and perpetrators. This complexity is accompanied by conceptual, regulatory and institutional challenges.

Despite the profound and pervasive impact of pyramid schemes, researchers know very little about why some people participate in pyramid schemes. Limited research is largely American and specific to illegal multi-level marketing schemes. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to provide an overview of a mix of strategies of participants of pyramid schemes to recruit new victims and reasons why people are joining pyramid schemes.

This paper aims to explore various cultural and behavioral issues associated with the problem of investment fraud in Indonesia.

By examining multiple cases of investment fraud in Indonesia as well as reviewing publicly available government reports, this study highlights several important cultural and behavioral issues associated with the susceptibility of Indonesian financial services consumers to investment fraud to understand better the dynamics of the victimization process. By using multiple cultural and behavioral theories, this study demonstrates how such issues shape the interactions between investment fraudsters and investment fraud victims.

This study demonstrates that multiple cultural and behavioral factors have created and shaped an environment where fraudsters can exploit people’s behavioral loopholes for their fraudulent schemes. In particular, the high power distance and high collectivism have been identified by this study as contributing to the high level of materialism in the country, which in turn makes people more susceptible to the temptation of get-rich-quick schemes. Investment fraudsters, being students of human behavior, use their behavioral knowledge to devise various means to deceive their victims. They use multiple psychological principles to stimulate target victims “gullibility to make them more vulnerable to fraudulent persuasion. In many cases, even financially literate people are not immune to fraudsters” deceitful messages. This study highlights gullibility production as a foundation for investment fraudsters to devise their means by which victims are manipulated to accept certain beliefs that depart from facts and evidence.

This paper contributes to the innovation in anti-fraud practice by building a better understanding of multiple cultural and behavioral issues associated with investment fraud victimization.

This paper brings a new perspective into the field of anti-fraud to stimulate innovation, in particular in investment fraud prevention.

This paper aims to explore factors influencing Vietnamese people’s susceptibility to fraud through cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

This study uses the gullibility theory, the theory of planned behavior theory, the traditional theory of finance and the theory of financial behavior, to develop a questionnaire which is then sent to respondents who are Vietnamese individuals. Subsequently, the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze 370 collected responses.

This research shows the important roles that trust, risk appetite and knowledge of Ponzi play in respect of fraud susceptibility, among which trust has the highest positive impact. Moreover, there is no evidence of relationships between Vietnamese people’s susceptibility to fraud via cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes and attitudes toward investment scams, knowledge of investment or knowledge of Ponzi schemes.

This paper collects only 370 valid responses, which raises some questions regarding the diversity and representativeness of the survey sample.

This study provides evidence on factors affecting Vietnamese people’s fraud susceptibility to cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes, which helps both authorities and individuals to be vigilant against investment scams.

This research proposes several recommendations to prevent investment scams in cryptocurrency trading, from the perspective of state regulators and individuals.

This working paper provides a new approach using PLS-SEM to build a theoretical framework for the possibility of becoming victims of investment scams in Vietnam using a combination of different theories from criminology and finance.

The purpose of this study is to formulate a governance and regulatory framework for Islamic crypto assets (ICAs). A balanced regulatory framework is required to protect consumers and to encourage digital Islamic finance innovation.

This study focuses on Indonesia and compares it to other countries, specifically Malaysia and the UK, using statutory, comparative and conceptual research approaches.

The ICAs are permissible (halal) commodities/assets to be traded if they fulfil the standards as goods or commodities that can be traded with a sale and purchase contract (sil’ah) and have an underlying asset (backed by tangible assets such as gold). Islamic social finance activities such as zakat and Islamic microfinance activities such as halal industry are backed by ICAs. The regulatory framework needed to support ICAs includes the Islamic Financial Services Act, shariah supervisory boards, shariah governance standards and ICA exchanges.

This study only examined crypto assets (tokens as securities) and not cryptocurrencies. It used regulations in several countries with potential in Islamic finance development, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK.

The ICA regulatory framework is helpful as an element of a comprehensive strategy to develop a lasting Islamic social finance ecosystem.

The development of crypto assets must be supported by a regulatory framework to protect consumers and encourage innovation in Islamic digital finance.

ICA has growth prospects; however, weak regulatory support and minimal oversight indicate weak legal protection for consumers and investors. Regulating ICA, optimising supervision, implementing shariah governance standards and having ICA exchanges can strengthen the Islamic economic ecosystem.

This study aims to propose a law enforcement strategy for investment fraud through comparative studies in the United States of America (USA), Canada and Indonesia, and to identify the factors that cause weak law enforcement on investment fraud with the object of a binary options case study in Indonesia.

This research is a type of legal research, namely, research based on legal materials (library-based). The legal materials used include primary legal materials and secondary legal materials. The approaches used are the statute approach, the case approach and the comparative approach. The data collection technique used in this research is a literature study. The analysis was carried out qualitatively by using an interactive model.

In 2022, the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) recorded that the total value of public losses because of investment fraud in Indonesia reached 117.4tn IDR. Weak law enforcement is the reason investment fraud thrives in society. Strategies that can be implemented to prevent investment fraud include early detection of new investment fraud modes through the whistleblower program, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, criminal restitution and improvement of public financial literacy.

This study examines the problems of law enforcement against investment fraud with a case study of binary options in Indonesia. A law enforcement strategy is built on identifying issues and adopting law enforcement policies against investment fraud in Canada and the USA.

For individuals, the results of this research can be used as reading material to increase their understanding of investment fraud. For the government, the results of this study can be a reference in an effort to eradicate the rise of investment fraud cases more effectively and create a safe digital economic space for investors.

The results of this study are expected to be useful in providing recommendations for strategies to strengthen law enforcement against the problems of investment fraud cases so as to form a conducive investment climate in the sense of being safe, comfortable and profitable.

Legal frameworks to prevent investment fraud are rarely discussed. The rise in binary options cases that occur is an indication of weak law enforcement in the investment sector. Therefore, an in-depth study of law enforcement strategies to prevent investment fraud is needed, with comparative studies in the USA, Canada and Indonesia.

There is strong excitement during Ponzi schemes and financial bubble periods. This emotion causes investors to turn to “unknown and new investment instruments”. This study, the factors that made “unknown and new investment instruments” preferable to “known and experienced investment instruments” were investigated.

It was taken into account unconscious like phantasy, emotional like emotional intelligence, both affective and cognitive like financial literacy and subjective beliefs like trust and overconfidence. In addition, risk preferences were measured with four different risk variables. In this context, data were collected by online survey method between November 2020 and May 2021 with convenience sampling. First, the data were collected from 832 participants in the pilot study. Additional data were also collected using convenience sampling and online surveys, and a total of 1,692 participants were obtained. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 25 and AMOS 24.

As a result of the analyses made, the variables that lead investors to choose “unknown and new investment instruments” were determined as risky investment intention, phantasy, risk taking/risk avoidance, confidence, risk tolerance and subjective financial literacy. Trust and risk perception have a very weak effect on preferences. However, no effect of emotional intelligence and objective financial literacy was detected. In addition, a moderately positive and significant relationship was found between objective and subjective financial literacy. Subjective financial literacy was found to have a strong and significant relationship with emotional intelligence, confidence, trust, risky investment intention and phantasy.

This study investigates the factors underlying individuals' investment preferences from a broad perspective. We think that this study is unique in this structure and wide variables. We believe that the findings obtained in this manner are unique to both academics and practitioners. We also believe that the findings of the study will make an important contribution to understanding participation behavior in various Ponzi schemes and financial bubbles.