A fake news scam which has circulated on social media in recent days has posed as the Cyprus Mail and Cypriot businessman Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

The website, hosted at “limass.info”, purports to be an article written by the Cyprus Mail’s journalist Tom Cleaver, with its headline and text referring to an “investment opportunity” which allows investors to “earn 5000 euros monthly [sic]”.

It refers to a scheme named “easyInvest”, which, in reality, does not exist.

Users are asked to make a minimum investment of €250, and told that “the more we invest, the greater our potential return”.

A separate advertisement for “easyInvest” quotes Haji-Ioannou as saying, “if you don’t earn 5000 euros in a month with easy profit – I will personally add 10000 euros to your account, agreed? [sic]”.

Meanwhile, the tax department warned of “unsolicited emails bearing the logo” of the department, “requesting verification of the recipient’s personal information, as well as their bank account details, under the pretext of a tax refund”.

The department warned the public that such emails are “intended to steal bank account details” and urged those who receive such emails to ignore them.

It added that “any communication between the tax department and taxpayers via electronic messages is carried out only through electronic addresses ending in @tax.mof.gov.cy”.