Detective Inspector Stuart Mills said callers posing as police and crypto company staff are tricking victims into handing over passwords and seed phrases.
New Zealand police say scammers impersonating detectives and cryptocurrency company employees have stolen millions of dollars from crypto account and wallet holders in recent weeks. Detective Inspector Stuart Mills said the fraud typically begins with a caller claiming to be a police detective who says a victim’s identity documents or personal information were found on someone recently arrested. After probing whether the target owns cryptocurrency and how much, a second scammer poses as a representative of the victim’s crypto company and persuades them to reveal passwords or seed phrases, sometimes through a fake website designed to resemble a legitimate crypto app. Mills warned the scam is increasing and said real police will never ask for details about crypto wallets, bank cards, PINs, passwords or seed phrases. He also said spoofed phone numbers and email addresses cannot be trusted. Police advised anyone unsure about a caller to ask for the officer’s details, hang up and call police directly, while New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Center (government cyber defense agency) urged people to be wary of urgent requests for software, money, or access to accounts or devices. The warning comes amid similar crypto scam losses elsewhere, including more than $1.47 million reported to Queensland’s Financial and Cyber Crime Group between July 3 and 7, a roughly $2.2 million loss suffered by a 70-year-old chartered accountant from Gwalior, India, and FBI data showing U.S. cryptocurrency losses reached $11.4 billion in 2025, up 22% from the prior year.