Four people currently face jail time of up to 15 years, after being criminally charged in Sydney last month with conspiracy to manipulate the stock market over a messaging app. So far, so usual. Potential scammers are always lurking among us. We know this.

But here’s the kicker. Only hours after that group’s charges were made public, a completely separate cohort created their own WhatsApp group to try and rope other unsuspecting Australians into engaging in the same crime. It’s an indication of just how common these scams are now. And how brazen the people behind them are.

Today, senior reporter Sarah Danckert on how to spot these scams. And how they damage the rest of our own bank accounts, even if we’ve never been targeted ourselves.

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