The co-founder of a fraudulent ICO project that duped more than $25 million from investors, Sohrab Sharma, has received a sentence of eight years in prison for his role. The project itself, dubbed Centra Tech, was previously backed by several celebrities, including the boxing legend Floyd Mayweather and the producer DJ Khaled. Centra Tech Co-Founder...Read More
A U.S. court has brought charges against three North Korean hackers, accusing them of massive crypto thefts. The individuals are computer programmers and have allegedly worked alongside government officials on their operations. Stealing More than $1.3B in Cash and Crypto A U.S. court charged three North Korean individuals suspected in an attempt for a massive...Read More
A 19-year old UK resident was jailed for a drug trafficking operation. He had participated in an attempt to import ecstasy bought with Bitcoin on the Dark Web. Buying Dark Web Ecstasy with Bitcoin The 19-year-old drug dealer is to serve two years in prison after a police investigation discovered he has been dealing with...Read More
An Australian man, founder of two multi-million crypto funds in New York, pleaded guilty on a crypto scam charge. The Ponzi scheme used a trading algorithm, taking advantage of price differences for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Draining almost $90M From Investors According to a recent report, Stefan He Qin organized the fraud that stole about $90...Read More
A 49-year old U.S. individual has pleaded guilty to a scheme, defrauding hundreds of investors with millions of dollars via a scheme involving bitcoin and cash. In two and a half years, he managed to fraudulently exchange at least $13 million. Illegally Exchanging Tens of Millions of Dollars A 49-year-old man from L.A. pleaded guilty...Read More
A Bulgarian national was sentenced to serve ten years in prison after a major crypto-related fraud. Not long ago, the man was convicted in a transnational multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud over 900 American citizens. An Auction Fraud That Victimized over 900 Americans According to an official announcement by the United States Department of Justice, Rossen G....Read More
Central District Court in California sentenced GemCoin founder Steve Chen to 10 years in federal prison. Chen has been announced guilty of being the mastermind and leader of a $147 million crypto Ponzi scheme that involved mining and digital currency fraud, and tax evasion. Over 70,000 Investors Defrauded with Gemstone-backed Crypto According to the US Department...Read More
Indian authorities have arrested a 60-year-old greetings maker for duping about 45 people in investing over $350,000 in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The accused ran the operation through a designated application and promised double-digit monthly returns. Indian Crypto Fraudster Arrested As reported by the Times of India, the local police apprehended Umesh Verma at the...Read More
After a threat of a lawsuit for displaying Bitcoin scams, The Guardian Australia launched an investigation to determine the nature of the increasing number of similar fraudulent activities. It concluded that there’s a group of fraudsters operating a massive global enterprise based in Moscow, Russia. Global BTC Scam Organization Revealed CryptoPotato reported in early October...Read More
Principal actors in the PlusToken Ponzi scheme have bagged 11-year prison sentences in China. The scheme managed to defraud investors of billions of dollars in various cryptocurrencies. End of the Road for PlusToken Scammers According to the South China Morning Post on Dec. 1, principal members of the PlusToken scam project were sentenced to 11...Read More
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has extradited a principal member of a fraudulent cryptocurrency mining and trading platform from Panama to the United States. AirBit Club Co-founder to Face Criminal Charges in the U.S. According to an announcement by the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, U.S. authorities...Read More
Chinese authorities seized around $4 billion worth of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from the notorious crypto Ponzi group PlusToken. This comes after the Chinese police arrested the core team running the scheme in July. Around $4 Billion Worth Of Bitcoin And Crypto Assets Seized According to CryptoPotato’s previous report on the PlusToken saga, the crypto...Read More
Scams within the cryptocurrency industry come in different shapes and forms, including impersonating legitimate applications downloadable from trusted establishments. A popular digital asset commentator recently warned the community about such a scam using the Uniswap name, resulting in the loss of $20,000. $20K Lost In A Uniswap-Impersonating Scam Uniswap is a sort of decentralized exchange...Read More
In 2019, cryptocurrency-related crime – thefts, hacks, fraud amounted to $4.5 billion. The latest data from blockchain forensics company CipherTrace shows that this number has fallen to $1.8 billion this year – a 60 percent reduction. Nonetheless, the DeFi space has seen an explosion in criminal activity. Mainstream Cryptocurrency Crime Declining Says CipherTrace In a...Read More
The leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has helped recover almost all $345,000 funds stolen due to an exit scam conducted by an automated market maker (AMM) dubbed Wine Swap. Binance Security Team Recovers 99.9% of Stolen Funds In a press release shared with CryptoPotato, the popular exchange shared that Wine Swap launched on Binance Smart Chain...Read More
A 40-years-old man from Auckland has been arrested because of an alleged money laundering scheme he orchestrated. He has been served with multiple charges, amongst which dubious cryptocurrency transactions and purchases of luxury goods. Thousands Of New Zealand Dollars To Buy Cryptocurrency According to a recent news report, the arrested man faces a pile of 30...Read More
This week, Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority made a startling revelation. Cryptocurrency fraud victims have lost at least €10 million between May 2019 and September 2020, the financial regulator said. Belgians Have Lost €10 Million In Cryptocurrency Fraud Belgian citizens have lost almost 10 million euros to fraudulent crypto investment schemes. Belgium’s apex financial...Read More
The owner of a cryptocurrency exchange has been recently convicted in a transnational scheme of defrauding people through an online auction fraud. Court says the scam reached a multi-million dollar scale. At Least 900 Americans Victimized As per a recent report, people who suffered from the fraud were probably more than 900 American citizens. According to...Read More
Spain-based trading software development company, Arbicorp, recently halted the activity of a trading bot. The decision affected more than 32,000 clients who once deposited their money on that platform and now cannot withdraw it. The Arbistar 2.0 trading bot offered 1% daily returns to anyone willing to invest at least 3000 euros ($3500). It also...Read More
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has banned an Australian national from working in the financial sector. According to the watchdog, John Louis Anthony Bigatton operated as the Director of Australia Promotions for the notorious cryptocurrency scam – BitConnect. Aussie National Banned For BitConnect Participation As CryptoPotato reported last year, the Australian corporate regulator...Read More
Joseph Frank Abel has pled guilty regarding his involvement in the notorious Bitcoin mining scheme BitClub Network worth over $700 million. The development follows the alleged owner’s arrest in June and a Romanian programmer also admitting to his participation in July. Another BitClub Operator Pleads Guilty According to a statement from the US Internal Revenue...Read More
The latest two DeFi protocols to pump and dump worthless tokens have been Hotdog and Pizza as the food meme trend continues. They are essentially clones of other defi platforms, some of which are clones themselves. The latest is a Uniswap clone called Hotdog that, just like SushiSwap, promised better APYs and shares in governance...Read More
An anonymous Bitcoin investor by the name “1400BitcoinStolen” claimed on Sunday that he lost 1400 BTC after “foolishly” installing an old version of the popular Electrum wallet, but turned out to be a phishing scam. A Trap Explaining the unfortunate incident, the victim said he had not been able to access the funds since 2017....Read More
Yesterday, the United States’ Department of Justice filed a complaint to seize 280 cryptocurrency accounts operated by notorious North Korean hackers. They allegedly stole millions of dollars worth of crypto assets from two cryptocurrency exchanges and also sought the help of Chinese OTC traders to launder the funds. US DOJ Moves To Seize Cryptocurrency Accounts...Read More
Police have reportedly arrested a Russian man for an attempt to recruit an employee in Nevada to plant malware on a Company’s network. In return, he promised him up to $1 million in cash and Bitcoin. The Offstage Attacker Was Reportedly Part Of A Larger Organisation As per the published court documents, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov has...Read More
Empire Market, the largest crypto darknet marketplace, has abruptly shut down. No communication was issued from the admins who seem to have siphoned away with user funds amounting to around $30 million in BTC. From the looks of it, this appears to be a pretty massive exit scam. Empire Market Exit Scams With 2638 BTC...Read More
Police in Seoul has forayed the offices of one of the biggest crypto exchanges in South Korea, Coinbit. Allegedly the firm has faked more than 99% of its trading volume. Coinbit Banks Over $85M According to a recent news report, authorities stormed the offices of the company early today. The suspicion is that Coinbit has...Read More
DeFi tokens continue to flood the markets as developers are minting new coins and listing them on Uniswap every day. While this might present an earning opportunity for some, the number of the so-called ‘rug pulls’ is also on the rise. Investors need to be extremely careful and selective when it comes to the tokens...Read More
A newly-detected scam has been luring users into a Bitcoin scam, Abnormal Security reports. The cybersecurity firm informs that cybercriminals have been impersonating the popular Bitcoin Era trading platform to attract investors, while actually infecting their online devices with malware. Emails, Mimicking BTC Era Platform The automated scam emails, which many users have reportedly received,...Read More
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reportedly after the owner of a crypto scheme, which misled over a thousand of its investors and clients. It seeks $572 million in financial penalties and restitution. $270M Worth Of BTC Stolen From More Than A Thousand Customers Аs per a recent report, the alleged Bitcoin trading pyramid Control-Finance...Read More
