(picture from Trading Sim website)
During this pandemic times, pump and dump scams are on a rise.
The modus operandi of the scam is the scammer will put up a social media profile that has an attractive picture and then use the profile to message people. The people who responded are then added into a group chat where foreign stock buying tips will be given. Unknown the the scamee (person who got scammed), all the people in the group chat are working together. Eventually the whole group will convince the scamee to buy some very speculative stock which the scammers have already loaded up. Doing it in scale, when more people buy the stock and as the stock rises, the scammers will quickly dump all their holdings making a clean profit.
This scam affects everyone world wide as now with internet it's very easy to open an account with a stock broker which provides access to all stock markets around the world.
There's currently no effective way to stop these pump and dump scams as from the 3rd party/authorities perspective, the scammee (person who got scammed) does not look like they got scammed because they are just doing a legitimate trade on an overseas stock.