The authorities of the United States pressed charges against Irina Dilkinska (who served as Head of Legal and Compliance at OneCoin) for her alleged role in the infamous crypto scam and deported her from Bulgaria to the US. She could receive a maximum potential prison sentence of 20 years for allegedly committing wire fraud and...Read More
The Arbitrum community has warned users about different fake airdrops pretending to be from the project’s newly launched decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Scammers started creating fake Arbitrum airdrops and phishing websites after the Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol announced the DAO last week while promising to distribute 12.57% of the governance token ARB to eligible community...Read More
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed that Americans parted with over $10 billion last year due to online fraud. Wrongdoers drained $2.57 billion of that amount via cryptocurrency investment schemes. Crypto Scams on the Rise Despite the predominantly bearish year for the cryptocurrency industry, 2022 was fruitful for criminals. They stole nearly $2.6 billion...Read More
The professional Brazilian soccer players – Gustavo Scarpa, Mayke Rocha de Oliveira, and Willian Bigode – have reportedly lost over $5 million due to investing in an alleged fraudulent cryptocurrency firm called Xland. The company said it did not run a pyramid scheme and promised to reimburse the victims. Athletes Have Fallen Victims Scarpa –...Read More
As if the traditional banking system isn’t causing enough troubles, a DeFi lending protocol called Euler Finance was also hit by a flash-loan attack. The damage equates to almost $200 million worth of staked ether, USDC, wrapped BTC, and DAI. Euler Finance is a decentralized lending protocol that was most recently exploited for a whopping...Read More
A second-year B.Com student from the Indian city Lucknow reportedly hanged himself after losing a bitcoin investment worth ₹3.5 lahks ($4,200). The local police assured they will investigate the tragic event once the victim’s family filed a complaint. Depression and Then Suicide According to coverage by Hindustan Times, the boy distributed the sum through an online...Read More
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an emergency action against the Miami-based financial advisor firm – BKCoin Management LLC – and its Co-Founder Kevin Kang, claiming they have defrauded investors with $100 million via a fraudulent crypto scheme. The agency seeks to impose financial penalties on the organization and a conduct-based injunction against...Read More
The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that a total of six executives of the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme AirBit Club have pleaded guilty for their roles in an internationally coordinated series of fraud and money laundering charges. Over a period of five years, the operators of AirBit Club had allegedly...Read More
Coffeezilla – the popular YouTuber and “Internet Detective” covering crypto scams – is now accusing the mixed martial arts legend Khabib Nurmagomedov of “scamming” his followers with NFTs. The former UFC lightweight champion said his new collection will give fans access his his “private club,” while enabling holders to mine Bitcoin. Khabib’s NFT Collection Nurmagomedov...Read More
The US authorities alleged Vladimir Okhotnikov, Olena Oblamska, Mikhail Sergeev, and Sergey Maslakov – the founders of the dubious cryptocurrency investment platform Forsage – to have orchestrated a global pyramid scheme that conned investors with approximately $340 million. All defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and could receive a maximum penalty of...Read More
According to recent Bulgarian sources, Ruja Ignatova, a.k.a the “Cryptoqueen,” might have been killed in November 2018. She is the founder of the fraudulent scheme OneCoin and was last spotted in Greece in 2017. More Evidence About her Possible Death Secret police documents seen by Bulgarian media outlets revealed that the notorious Ruja Ignatova might have been...Read More
On February 21st, Friendsies, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection that recently raised approximately $5 million, announced in an unexpected way that it would be taking a “pause” on its roadmap, sparking rumors in the community of a possible rug pull. According to the Friendsies team, “the volatility and challenges of the market” complicated the project’s...Read More
A recent study by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis found that 24% of the tokens launched in 2022 had the characteristics of pump-and-dump schemes. Most of the tokens plunged by 90% in the first week of their launch after their creators dumped their holdings. This, according to Chainalysis, is a typical feature of a pump and...Read More
Last year was less profitable for crypto scammers as their revenue plunged nearly 50% in 2022, according to a new study by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The blockchain company noted that the decrease in revenue could be linked to the decline in the value of cryptocurrencies due to the correlation of most scam types with...Read More
A British pensioner living in Nottinghamshire parted with $207,000 after becoming a victim of a bitcoin romance scam. The police managed to restore some of the stolen funds and warned people to be extra vigilant with online dating due to the rise of similar frauds. The Latest BTC Romance Scheme The Nottinghamshire police said a woman...Read More
On February 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce with illegally promoting the EMAX token on his social media accounts. The EMAX token was offered and sold by EthereumMax. According to the complaint, Pierce has agreed to pay a penalty of $1,115,000, plus approximately $240,000 in disgorgement and...Read More
Gilbert Armenta – the former boyfriend of Ruja Ignatova (more famous as the “Cryptoqueen”) – will reportedly spend five years in jail for participating in the fraudulent cryptocurrency project OneCoin. The Bulgarian-born Ignatova – the Founder of the infamous Ponzi scheme – sits on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list. She was last seen in 2017...Read More
Wybo Wiersma – a 40-year-old Dutchman who studied at Oxford’s St Cross College – will serve a 54-month prison sentence for stealing £2,156,000 (more than $2.6 million) using a cryptocurrency scheme. UK detectives linked the scam to the man who used the pseudonym Norbert van den Berg in his malicious website and university coursework. ‘Greed...Read More
According to an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Observer, more than 168 shell companies in the United Kingdom are suspected of operating fraudulent crypto or foreign exchange trading schemes, around half of which are potentially linked to pig-butchering scams. In fact, these organized crime groups were found to be using the...Read More
Randall Crater – the Founder of the fraudulent cryptocurrency business “My Big Coin” – will spend 100 months in jail. Federal prosecutors previously insisted his punishment should have been 13 years. Crater Defrauded Investors With Over $7.5 Million U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston ruled that Crater should stay in prison for more than eight years...Read More
Stephen Carr – a resident of Meaford, Ontario – said he lost his entire life savings of nearly $500,000 after being conned into a cryptocurrency scheme on YouTube. Scammers have used the video-sharing website multiple times to lure victims. Some have even uploaded fake recordings of famous people, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates,...Read More
The popular on-chain sleuth ZachXBT recently called out two growing Twitter accounts for perpetrating multiple NFT-related scams over the past month. The analyst explained the timeline of events on Friday, including their sudden rise to prominence and the rug pulls they’ve managed to pull off. Calling Out the Scammers As outlined in the analyst’s Twitter...Read More
Scammers have created a fake FTX token, dubbed FTX 2.0, to impersonate the now-bankrupt crypto exchange less than 24 hours after the company’s new CEO announced that the platform could be revived. According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the bad actors sent the tokens to the FTX exchange, pretending to add liquidity before airdropping them...Read More
On November 13, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) announced that it had successfully cracked down on a criminal network engaged in online scams through call centers. The network was spread all around Europe. According to Europol, the operation was carried out on January 11, 2023, following an investigation that began in...Read More
Victims of the Ponzi scheme BitConnect may finally find some respite. The United States District Court for the Southern District of California ordered over $17 million in restitution to be distributed to nearly 800 victims from over 40 different countries due to their investment losses in BitConnect, which defrauded thousands of investors across the world....Read More
Less than two weeks into the new year, malicious entities have already started doing what they do best. According to the latest update by the blockchain security company CertiK, two recently created contracts – CirculateBUSD and CirculateWBNB – have been pumped away by the creators. The funds have been bridged to Ethereum and deposited into...Read More
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Neil Chandran and seven other individuals and entities for orchestrating the fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme called CoinDeal. The suspects allegedly defrauded investors with around $45 million over the years and used the money to buy real estate, cars, and a boat. Halting the Crime The SEC accused Neil Chandran,...Read More
It’s no secret that wash trading continues to plague the crypto market. A paper titled “Crypto Wash Trading,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), found that an overwhelming number of unregulated crypto exchanges account for a sizeable portion of wash trades. The nonprofit research organization studied 29 major exchanges, such as Binance,...Read More
The global investment banking firm – Jefferies Group – reportedly determined FTX creditors could retrieve as much as 40% of their lost money. In an interview for The Block, Joseph Femenia – Global Head of Distressed Debt Trading at Jefferies – said there’s light in the tunnel for FTX creditors who could recover between 20% and...Read More
Scams have been rampant this year despite the market slowdown. A new type of sneaky crypto scam with front-running scam bots on YouTube has shot up six-fold in 2022. These types of frauds attract users by posting advertisements on social media claiming to teach you how to make thousands of dollars of money in a...Read More
