Investigating Sawerex: Legit or Scam? The Truth Revealed

Recently, Sawerex.com site surfaced, promoting itself as a place to store cryptocurrency and other assets securely. I managed to gather reliable proof that clearly reveals it is, in truth, a deceptive site.

Despite the promises of the most easy, dependable, and customer-centric service, Sawerex.com does not follow any of them. In fact, all this is just a golden wrap around a clear scam, which takes your money and never gives them back. Any tales about bonuses, endorsement from celebrities etc are absent as well.

Sawerex Scam Overview

Originally, Sawerex poses as a crypto trading & cryptowallet platform with outstandingly low commission fees. Another highlighted selling point for this service is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look real, frauds employ deepfake videos where those celebrities advertise the fake crypto service as the best thing in the world. For known reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I mentioned above, all this is just a glaring wrap around an obvious scam.

Sawerex Scam

First and foremost, Sawerex copies the appearance of multiple equivalent websites. There are quite a few examples, like Fuqex, Finopta or Dexlcoin. They are entirely identical in terms of graphic elements, with minor discrepancies in the webpage header. Other specific elements, and sometimes even crypto wallet addresses, are unchanged. Most likely, all these fraudulent sites are managed by the same group of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Sawerex Scam Works?

Sawerex is a part of a large cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating vividly in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the same overall layout. Another shared element are the ways the scams like NAME are promoted, and the manner all this ends up to the victim of the scam. To reach peak efficiency, frauds apply sophisticated psychological tricks that make the user believe in the validity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To start the fraud, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They primarily target Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign begins. Utilizing bots and paid ads (when feasible), scam actors increase the exposure of their scam activities to potential victims. And as I said, scammers do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the aforementioned celebs that promote their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, deceivers claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

Promotions of cryptoscams like Sawerex in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the ads, targets end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Sawerex”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Sawerex, “Start earning with Sawerex – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that claiming the promised bonus requires registration. And as nothing concerning happens at this point, unaware users happily keep on – especially as the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to skip the scam without any losses. Before you register using your personal info, swindrels will not earn even a penny from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just said, frauds bait folks into signing up to get bonuses. And all the personal info needed for it – username, email, crypto wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Only by gathering this data and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the claimed bonus right away. To make at least crypto purchases on the platform with it, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto operations require you to have money on your account. In the case of Sawerex, users are also compelled to top up to claim the bonuses. And these top ups is what creates the majority of the money flow to this fraudulent website. By topping up the account, users hope to get the promised gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start participating on this site hoping to use all the deposited funds and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the victim notices the problems. When comparing the actual cryptocurrency wallet vs what the website says, you can observe that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to withdraw the funds from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

There’s no need to explain that scoundrels have zero intentions to return your money. Though to make the fraud look more legitimate, they’ve made up a whole bunch of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Usually, they repeat what KYC regulations say, but in this case they are here exclusively to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal information, scammers just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are a dozen other checks you would desperately need to undergo before getting your grand back. And each of these checks will share more and more info of yours, which – you guessed it right – will be then sold on the Darknet. Never reveal your real info to strangers!

Signs of Scam

I gathered several facts that point at the scammy nature of the Sawerex.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Sawerex does not provide any documentation about its ownership, location or registration. No legitimate contact details are given either. Moreover, it appears that the domain and all social network pages were registered quite recently.
• Fake sponsorship from a celebrity. Scams like Sawerex like to pick a celebrity as a sponsor of this entire campaign. For obvious reasons, fraudsters generally choose Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, Mark Zuckerberg, and similar celebrities. They do not disdain claiming partnership with a company as well. Even though Coinbase, Binance or MetaMask never heard of Sawerex, they do not care – this creates a halo of credibility.
• Potential Ponzi Scheme. The scam relies on a Ponzi-like referral system to spread reach through social media. In fact, only the first members will receive the payoff, at the cost of the money brought by other members.
• Hype without facts. Frauds can cheer up their victims from time to time, using claims about non-existent events. “We got contracts with Coinbase”, “Elon Musk mentioned us as the most prolific crypto project” – you could likely hear something like that. This is made to make people believe in their money return. This can be the sauce to make people top-up their accounts once again.
• Crypto-only incoming payments. Whether the user tries to top-up the account, hackers will only accept payments in crypto – no bank transfers or other payment methods. Such an approach completely hides the identity of the company and deprives you of the ability to ask for a refund.
• Claims are too good to be true. Let’s be sane and sober: even in crypto space, there are not many places where you can earn 50-100-200%. Being able to participate in all of them is nearly impossible, as well as it is impossible to insure or hedge all the risks. Even by that reason alone I can tell that the Sawerex is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Sawerex site and fell victim to that scam, there are still some steps to take. They will make further scam attempts harder, and also boost the knowledge about that scam among folks.

• Report the scam to authorities. Search for local authorities responsible for financial frauds, and also notify wallet providers and social networks via their tech support. It is essential to make the further operations of these scammers much harder.
• Tell your close friends. That step is similar to reporting to the authorities, and has similar effects. By posting info about scam crypto service, you decrease the pool of people they can fool.
• Get evidence. Screenshot or save all the information related to the website. URL, screenshot of a main page, login window, EULA, account top-up menu, wallet addresses – all these things may be useful for authorities to find the scammers.
• Check whether you can ask for a refund. As I’ve said above, crypto payments do not fall under refund policies in most banks. Nonetheless, in some circumstances, it is still possible. Never lose hope until you actually confirm it is gone.
• Make your mistake your lesson. Financial losses are always a reason for frustration, but let’s imagine it was a pay for scam revealing courses. Remember the key features of these crypto scam sites, the way they attract people and what they promise. In the future, you will easily recognize a trap of spending no money.

Scan your system for possible malware infections

Beware of cross scams! Scam actors can use your trust to make you download some stuff or interact with certain documents. It may be a trap that installs malware to your system. There are no moral barriers or limits for these scoundrels.

Throughout the timeline of the scam, scoundrels may get in touch with you with specific files. Alternatively, they may propose you to install “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to simplify access to your cryptocurrency funds. As we earlier determined, these scammers have no intention of giving back your capital. So, what do these email messages and browser extensions represent? You guessed – that is another side of the deceptive plan designed to throw you into willingly installing destructive applications onto your system.

Both plugins and files added to email messages can function as a carrier for different malware. In this scenario, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among all forms of threats. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the likelihood is always significant. As stated, their conscience is of no concern, and their dignity is already seriously marred. They have nothing to give up and strive to boost revenues.

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