Sir John Key, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand has never invested in Bitcoin. He is not promoting cryptocurrency. If you see it on your news feed or on a website it’s a scam.

Scammers on social media Facebook and Twitter and other sites have set up fake websites to look like the New Zealand Herald. With that photo and a pull quote claiming

I have invested in Bitcoin because I believe in its potential, the capacity it has to transform global payments is very exciting.

~ Never said by John Key 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand but actually said by Richard Branson

Scammers never fully abandon an idea, this will be recycled when the bad publicity dies down.

The article quotes Key as saying he turned a $1000 investment into $300 Million in seven years using a “bitcoin loophole”. Supposedly you can make hundreds of millions of dollars without understanding the market, without effort and without risk.

There’s a hint. Anybody selling you something that uses a “loophole” is a scam, 100% of the time. People who actually discover loopholes (or correlations) keep the secret to themselves while they make money on this arbitrage. When the process stops working efficiently, they sell it to other fools people.

Sir John Key tried to get Facebook to take down ads using the fake image and website. Initially Facebook refused and resisted despite it being an obvious scam. Hopefully six months later and with all the focus on fake news, it looks like the ads are no longer visible on Facebook, but a source who knows Sir John says he is still frustrated and annoyed by these scammers.

The NZ Herald also worked to get the fake site taken down and appears to have succeeded. However the registry information shows the bisimfinance domain is still registered.

Sir John Key made his fortune as a currency trader before entering politics. His net worth is estimated at $65 million NZD.