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SdK’s 2025 Black Book Warns of Social-Media Investment Fraud Wave

The annual SdK report says social platforms now serve as gateways for offshore schemes using fabricated celebrity pitches.

Overview

  • SdK reports that TikTok videos and WhatsApp groups increasingly funnel bogus stock tips, with scammers deploying stolen identities or AI-generated messages.
  • Perpetrators often operate from abroad, hindering prosecution, and losses may be substantial, with North Rhine-Westphalia in 2024 potentially hit for several hundred million euros.
  • The report highlights fake cryptocurrency and trading platforms as additional trapdoors for retail investors, citing frequent BaFin warnings.
  • Beyond scams, SdK calls out corporate governance failures, criticizing BayWa over a company-paid performance at a private birthday and urging the supervisory board to resign.
  • SdK underscores legal momentum, noting a pending constitutional complaint over VARTA’s StaRUG restructuring and a September BGH ruling that strengthened shareholder transparency in the Volkswagen case.