It’s been a bad year for crypto so far – between large companies going under, a slew of cyberattacks, and – most importantly – the value of assets taking a nosedive, overall legitimate volumes have plummeted by 36% year over year., said Chainalysis. However, there is a silver lining – the illicit trading volumes have...Read More
According to a study conducted by Chainalysis, wrongdoers have stolen approximately $1.4 billion worth of digital assets between January 2022 and now. Targeting cryptocurrency bridges seems to have been a preferred method. Some examples of such attacks in 2022 include the exploit of the Horizon bridge, the $190 million breach on Nomad Bridge, and one...Read More
Dragoma, a Web3 lifestyle sports application built on Polygon, was rug pulled in the latest example of such an event in the crypto community. According to blockchain intelligence and security firm, PeckShield, the native token of the project – DMA – lost over 99% of its value following the incident. DMA pumped to an all-time...Read More
Cryptocurrency scams have reportedly been one of the most common cyber offenses in Hong Kong during the first half of 2022, and 25% involved digital assets. The concerning number of such fraudulent schemes could be explained by the growing interest in cryptocurrencies displayed by many Hong Kong residents. A recent research classified the state as...Read More
The US Department of Justice sentenced the 40-year-old resident of Pelahatchie, Mississippi – Jessica Sledge – to the statutory maximum of 10 years in Federal Prison. In 2021, the woman hired a “hitman” and paid him $10,000 worth of bitcoin to murder her husband. Additionally, the authorities jailed the citizens of Orange County – Jeremy...Read More
The blockchain analytics firm launched Chainalysis Government Solutions, a subsidiary focused on helping US government agencies investigate crypto-related crimes. According to the firm’s latest research, 75% of public sector agencies worldwide are under-prepared in terms of tackling crypto incidents, demonstrating an increasing need for relevant resources and technologies made available to investigators. Government Businesses After...Read More
The US State Department vowed to give up to $10 million to anyone who gives valuable information that could be used against North Korean cryptocurrency hacking collectives. The amount is double the previous bounty promised in March 2022. The Agency Needs Help North Korean hacking groups have been a significant burden for the American authorities...Read More
In a case stretching back as far as 2018, Michael Alan Stollery – the CEO of Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) – was accused of securities fraud by the SEC due to the way the ICO of his platform was handled. The case reached a turning point this week, as Stollery admitted to one count...Read More
An Atlanta film producer has recently pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for promoting fraudulent crypto investment schemes that defrauded investors of over $2.5 million. Man Pleads Guilty to ICO Fraud In an official statement, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that the 48-year-old convict, Ryan Felton, promoted an initial coin...Read More
The Miami-based blockchain security company – Halborn – closed a $90 million Series A financing round. The initiative comes at a time when numerous venture capital firms have withdrawn their interest in the crypto sector due to the downturn of the market. Pushing Forward Amidst the Crypto Winter In an interview for Bloomberg, Halborn disclosed...Read More
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned financial institutions and investors to be careful when dealing with digital assets because the sector is rammed by scammers whose only goal is to defraud people. As of the moment, the agency has identified 244 victims of fraudulent crypto schemes who lost a combined sum of $42.7 million....Read More
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
