Scammers launched a fake coin under the name of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

The fake Saudi Arabia coin, named the “Official” Saudi Arabia memecoin (KSA), was announced on Feb. 17. The announcement came from an X account named “SaudiLawConf,” which falsely presented itself as connected to the crown prince. The real owners of the account, the Saudi Law Conference, later confirmed that their X account had been hacked. 

Scammers frequently use public figures’ identities to promote fraudulent crypto projects, abusing public trust in well-known individuals. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have previously been targeted in similar scams, where fraudsters promoted fake crypto giveaways. 

While impersonating famous individuals, these coins tend to exhibit big, red flags which inexperienced investors may not notice. The fake Saudi Arabia memecoin displayed multiple red flags. For one, the announcement lacked details about tokenomics or the coin’s intended use and lacked any official government statements supporting the project.

Another less-obvious red flag was that the token’s contract had been deployed on-chain a week before the announcement. The launch took place on Feb. 10 through Solana-based memecoin platform Pump.fun. The fraudulent token failed to gain traction, with its market capitalization reaching only $7,489, according to Pump.fun data.