According to an analysis conducted by Bankless Times, cryptocurrencies have grabbed the attention of a significant chunk of America’s population. However, scammers have used this growing popularity to con people in various methods. Romance scams are among the most employed technique since US citizens have parted with $185 million due to such schemes between January...Read More
Kim Grauer – Director of Research at Chainalysis – said there’s been a “pullback” in funds received by cryptocurrency scam addresses during the bear market. Other forms of financial crime in the digital asset world, such as ransomware, do not reflect the same trend. Scams Track the Market As Grauer explained to Yahoo Finance on...Read More
Twitter and YouTube accounts of the British Army were simultaneously hacked on Sunday and used for promoting two different crypto scams. However, by Sunday evening, the compromised accounts had been restored to normal, media reports said. Cyber Attack The unknown hackers changed the account details to make them look in sync with the crypto scams they...Read More
Web3 infrastructure firm Ankr is known for offering node endpoints, staking services, and other products to proof-of-stake blockchains. On Friday, a hacker forfeited a scam-like pop-up on Polygon and Fantom network by hijacking Ankr’s domain name system (DNS) to steal users’ seed phases. The project soon recovered the human-made errors and stated that no funds...Read More
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted 6 people in 4 different cases of cryptocurrency frauds, including Baller Ape NFT rug-pull, worth nearly $130 million. Baller Ape NFT Scam According to a release from the agency, Vietnamese national Le Anh Tuan, 26, pulled down the website and fled with investors’ money after the first-day public...Read More
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a U.S. federal regulatory agency, charged a South African citizen and a global foreign currency commodity pool with alleged fraud and registration violations worth nearly $2 billion in BTC. Fraudulent Scheme Raked in $1.7 Billion in Bitcoin According to a press release on Thursday (June 30, 2022), the CFTC...Read More
US Federal authorities have arrested and charged two 21-year-old men in Virginia with planning a violent robbery of bitcoins worth millions of dollars. The duo had plotted to break into a family’s home in Westchester County, NYC, and force its residents to reveal the code to the private key of the wallet which they thought...Read More
Indian investors may have lost $128 million (INR 1,000 crore) to fake crypto exchanges. Most of them were cheated due to a lack of knowledge about safe investments in digital assets. As investors increasingly shift their attention to crypto, scammers are also focusing on this new asset class to find their preys, said a news...Read More
On June 22, Elliptic Connect, a blockchain analytics provider specializing in cryptocurrency-based financial crime prevention, published an investigation showing that Dogecoin (DOGE), Elon Musk’s favourite cryptocurrency, is being used by criminals to commit illicit acts. According to Elliptic, Dogecoinis being used to finance frauds, scams, Ponzi schemes, and other more serious crimes like terrorism and...Read More
India’s biggest crypto fraud to date continues to throw up new details, extending the size and scope of the scam even four years after the case first came to light. Earlier, the police estimated that the GainBitcoin scam involved about 80,000 BTC, but now they suspect the number to be anywhere between 385,000 to 600,000,...Read More
In yet another breach, 32 non-fungible tokens were stolen because the Discord servers of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and OtherSide were compromised. Earlier today, the Discord servers of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and OtherSide were compromised. The community manager going by the Twitter handle BorisVagner had his account hacked, which enabled scammers to...Read More
Crypto wallet Metamask is partnering with Asset Reality – a platform for accessing and recovering seized crypto and digital assets, to help users recover stolen assets. The service is free of charge, but users need to pay relevant litigation fees. Recovering Stolen Crypto Metamask, with over 30 million monthly active users, is one of the...Read More
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has charged two U.S. residents and their entities for running a cryptocurrency investment scheme that defrauded over 170 investors. CFTC Charges Two Men for $44M Crypto Scam In an official press release, the CFTC alleged that the defendants, Sam Ikkurty and Ravishankar Avadhanam, had fraudulently solicited a...Read More
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has sentenced a 25-year-old Rhode Island cryptocurrency trader, popularly known as Coin Signals, to 42 months in prison for defrauding over 170 people of more than $5 million. Coin Signals Trader Convicted According to an official press release, the convict, Jeremy Spence, had solicited funds from investors via...Read More
Five US states announced plans to take immediate action against a Russian organization allegedly selling fraudulent NFTs to US investors for funding a metaverse casino called Flamingo Casino Club. The authorities required the entity to stop selling such digital assets, accusing it of committing fraud and selling unregistered securities. Fraudulent Claims Securities Regulators from Alabama,...Read More
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) confirmed over Twitter on Monday that its Instagram account was hacked. A scam link posted by the hacker appears to have resulted in multiple valuable NFTs being stolen from victims. The link, which has since been taken down, led to a page claiming to be sponsored by Yuga Labs. It...Read More
The United States Secret Service (USSS) has seized over $102 million in cryptocurrencies during investigations into criminal and fraud cases since 2015, said David Smith, Assistant Director of Investigations. Smith leads the USSS’ global investigative wing with 161 offices and over 3,000 employees. To track illicit currency transactions and crackdown on them, US Secret Service...Read More
Rug pulls have grown to become a menace in the space of decentralized finance and have resulted in hundreds of millions stolen from users. Being amongst the most common types of scams, some US politicians have taken aim and want to outlaw them. State Senator Kevin Thomas and Assembly member Clyde Vanel have introduced Senate...Read More
SlowMist – a blockchain security firm – has identified dozens of crypto addresses that have appeared to fall victim to a phishing scam on the Terra network since April 12th. The scammer’s address has reportedly reeled in $4.31M in assets up until the time of writing. According SlowMist’s explanation on Twitter, $4.31 million in assets...Read More
Leading American agencies, including the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Treasury Department, alerted that North Korean-sponsored hackers seek to exploit crypto firms and exchanges in the USA. The wrongdoers’ main goal is to “generate and launder funds” to support the totalitarian regime in the East Asian country. Beware of North...Read More
India’s financial crime investigation agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sought the help of police in a case of bitcoin theft worth Rs. 6 crores ($790,000) by the investigators who were assisting the police in a crypto fraud case worth over $260 million. What Is the Case? As per media reports, ED officials visited the office...Read More
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet was bought as an NFT by the crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi for $2.9 million last year. In 2022, Estavi aims to get the NFT sold at $50M or more – as of now – the highest bid he has is for $11,500 (3.8 ETH). The tweet “just setting up...Read More
American law enforcement agents seized approximately $34 million worth of digital assets tied to illicit Dark Web activity. The operation marked one of the largest confiscations of cryptocurrencies ever executed by the US authorities. ‘Operation TORnado’ was a Success According to a recent announcement by the Department of Justice, the hacker is a South Florida...Read More
On March 28, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested a person, Abdul Gafoor, one of the accused in the Morris Coin fraud case that erupted on the India crypto scene in January 2022 and still remains one of the largest such frauds in the country. ED is the economic intelligence wing of the Ministry of Finance,...Read More
It’s April 1st – a day celebrated internationally by people who make practical jokes and have fun. In previous years, we’ve always dedicated a piece on something fun and whimsical to brighten the mood of our readers, but today, it’s important to remain careful. The industry has changed a lot in the past year, and...Read More
The lack of knowledge among common investors about cryptocurrencies and how to safely invest in them is resulting in a growing number of frauds. In a recent example, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Ahmedabad Police in India’s Gujarat province registered a case where the victim was duped of Indian Rupees (Rs.) 22 lakh (approximately...Read More
The US Justice Department announced that two men have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering “in connection with a million-dollar scheme to defraud purchasers of NFTs advertised as Frosties.” The suspects, Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, were accused of lying about benefits promised to NFTs buyers and withdrawing the cryptocurrency...Read More
US Attorney Dena J. King announced that law enforcement seized $547,000 worth of bitcoin from a criminal who conned an elderly person last year. The officials will return all funds to the victim. Cracking Down a Crypto Scam In its latest efforts to fight fraudulent activities involving cryptocurrencies, American officials confiscated more than $500,000 in...Read More
The Shanghai Public Security Bureau and the Yangpu Public Security Bureau conducted a joint investigation on pyramid schemes using cryptocurrencies. Shortly after, the authorities busted an online platform, which drained nearly $16 million in digital assets from its victims over the years. Shanghai’s First Cracked Crypto Pyramid Scheme According to a local report, the organization...Read More
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted almost every single aspect of life. Since the physical contact between humans had to be reduced to a minimum, love dates and romantic activities became increasingly popular on dating applications. And while some people found their soulmates online, others turned into victims of cryptocurrency scammers who drained a significant chunk of...Read More
