The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted two men for perpetrating a crypto Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of approximately $25 million. According to a press release from the Justice Department, 51-year-old David Gilbert Saffron of Australia and 52-year-old Vincent Anthony Mazzotta Jr. of California operated a fraudulent crypto investment scheme that lured...Read More
The United States Justice Department (DOJ) has charged four people for their alleged roles in laundering millions of dollars from cryptocurrency investment scams. According to a press release from the DOJ, the four individuals, Lu Zhang of Alhambra, California, Justin Walker of Cypress, California, Hailong Zhu of Naperville, Illinois, and Joseph Wong of Rosemead, California,...Read More
The IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) has disclosed its top 10 cases of 2023, representing the most significant incidents of the previous year. CI Chief Jim Lee highlighted that billions of dollars in fraud, victims across the globe, and criminals are all about personal gain. In a statement to CryptoPotato, Lee said that the CI investigation...Read More
A phishing scam targeting the Stargate Snapshot platform resulted in significant financial losses. A Discord Moderator of LayerZero, the underlying network of Stargate, revealed that a scammer effectively carried out a deceptive proposal vote, utilizing a phishing link to manipulate users into staking STG tokens. Scammer Misleads Token Holders in Fake Proposal Vote The scam...Read More
A circuit court in Estonia overturned a previous ruling allowing the extradition of two Estonian citizens charged with cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering to the United States. According to the court, the Estonian government did not consider certain circumstances before agreeing to extradite the individuals involved in the case. New Court Ruling Cancels Extradition Approval...Read More
Following the JPEX fiasco, it appears that another crypto trading platform called Hounax reportedly scammed some Hong Kong investors, causing them to lose over $15 million. Meanwhile, some of the victims believe that the city-state regulator’s warning about the platform came after they already locked their money in Hounax. Hounax Crypto Exchange Allegedly Disappears With...Read More
Electric Capital, a prominent venture capital firm, has warned about a sophisticated scam operation targeting potential investors. Avichal Garg, Co-Founder and General Partner of Electric Capital, revealed in a recent post the alarming tactics being employed by scammers. Electric Capital Exposes Sophisticated Crypto Scam According to Garg, the fraudsters are masquerading as representatives of Electric...Read More
Inferno Drainer, one of the most widely used wallet-draining services in recent memory, has announced that it will be ceasing operations effective immediately. Over $70 Million Stolen While Active Earlier this spring, the first mentions of the Inferno drainer – a service that “helped” bad actors steal funds out of other wallets in exchange for...Read More
United States prosecutors arrested three people for allegedly stealing $10 million from financial institutions and laundering the stolen funds using cryptocurrency exchanges. The individuals could each get up to over 80 years in prison if found guilty of the allegations. Defrauding Banks and Channeling Proceeds to Crypto Exchanges A press release by the U.S. Attorney’s...Read More
Last year, French national Michel Aurelien, who was inspired by the BAYC collections’ success, founded the Mutant Ape variation. Although his own version was in no way endorsed or approved by YugaLabs, it nonetheless became somewhat popular in just a few months. Misleading From The Start Unfortunately for investors of the project – which has...Read More
On Nov. 15, Scott Melker, aka “The Wolf of All Streets,” said that one of his followers was hacked in the latest scam targeting Ledger users. While checking his Nano S hardware wallet, the user reported seeing a 503 HTTP API error when it attempted to synchronize, “which in and of itself terrified me.” The...Read More
A sophisticated phishing scam involving a counterfeit Skype application has resulted in the theft of a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, according to SlowMist, a prominent blockchain security firm. The investigation has also revealed a connection to a past phishing incident that involved the same domain previously posing as Binance. Phishing App Mimics Skype in Security...Read More
OneCoin’s head of legal and compliance Irina Dilkinska has pleaded guilty this week to wire fraud and money laundering charges in connection to the crypto scam that deceived and resulted in a $4 billion fraud. The DOJ said that the US District Judge Edgardo Ramos accepted Dilkinska’s guilty plea. According to the official press release,...Read More
The founders behind the once multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency, SafeMoon (SFM), have been charged with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy by U.S. government, with accompanying charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). On Wednesday, founders Braden John Karony (aka “CPT_HODL_T_MUN”) and Thomas Smith (aka “papa”) were arrested in Provo, Utah and Bethlehem, New Hampshire,...Read More
Research by blockchain security firm Hacken has found that most of the crypto projects rug-pulled in the third quarter of 2023 had no audit reports. According to the Q3 2023 Security Insights report, only 12 out of 78 examined rug pulls conducted and reported audits. Most Rugpulled Projects Are Not Audited An independent third-party audit...Read More
In a decisive move to counter the escalating use of cryptocurrencies in criminal activities, London’s Metropolitan Police established a 40-member team specializing in crypto investigations. The move comes as authorities express mounting concerns that digital currencies now play an ‘endemic role’ in organized crime. UK Crypto Fraud Cases Skyrocket Since its inception in May, the...Read More
The Calgary Police Service issued a warning to residents to beware of fraudsters who promise high returns on crypto investments, noting that Calgary victims have lost more than $22 million mostly to investment scams so far in 2023. Meanwhile, authorities believe crypto scams are still underreported despite huge losses. Calgary Police Receive More Crypto Scam...Read More
Zero-transfer phishing scams have continued to plague the crypto space, with bad actors siphoning millions of digital assets from unsuspecting victims. Blockchain analytics platform Bitrace revealed that the damage scale for zero-transfer phishing scams has increased significantly, with market participants losing more than 451 million Tether (USDT) on the Tron network. Investors Lose $451M USDT...Read More
A former CEO of an investment firm has admitted to engaging in a “cherry-picking” scheme regarding crypto futures contracts and foreign exchange contracts. The practice caused losses for investors, with the ex-CEO using proceeds from the scheme for personal use. Fraudulent Cherry Picking Practice The founder and former CEO of investment firm Systematic Alpha Management...Read More
TL;DR The Shiba Inu team resolved a SHIB Telegram account hack, with security measures like two-factor authentication (2FA) implemented. A fake BONE token airdrop was promoted via the compromised account; Vet Kusama warned the community. Shiba Inu officials consistently alert the community about potential scams and advised caution with the SHIB-related Calcium (CAL) token. Fixing...Read More
Shibarmy Scam Alerts – the X (Twitter) account dedicated to protecting the Shiba Inu community from fraud and bad actors – warned people to be extra cautious when connecting the crypto wallets to unknown decentralized applications. In the following lines, we will break down the five main approaches wrongdoers use to con victims. ‘Let’s Play...Read More
The crypto market may have failed to post a bullish breakthrough in September, but that did not stop malicious entities from stealing funds. According to the latest stats by CertIK, approximately $332 million in various digital assets has been lost to exploits, hacks, and scams in September September Sees Record-Breaking Losses Funds pilfered by exit...Read More
Pablo Rodriguez – the co-founder of the cryptocurrency pyramid scheme AirBit Club – was sentenced to 12 years in prison months after pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges in a US District Court in March. Rodriguez and his co-conspirators were accused of orchestrating a global scam, enticing investors with false promises of cryptocurrency riches...Read More
Rashawn Russell, a former investment banker and registered broker who worked for Deutsche Bank, has pleaded guilty to charges relating to investment fraud, after orchestrating a cryptocurrency scheme to swindle investors. The ex-Deutsche executive could face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for his crimes. Russell to Pay Restitution of Over $1.5 Million...Read More
Despite false testimony from a prosecution witness linked to the “Cryptoqueen” fugitive Ruja Ignatova, the lawyer who funneled $400 million from the OneCoin cryptocurrency fraud, Mark Scott, will not receive a new trial. US District Judge Edgardo Ramos, in a ruling on Monday, rejected Scott’s request for a fresh trial. The 54-year-old had been found...Read More
Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of OneCoin and wingman for Ruja Ignatova, also known as “Cryptoqueen,” was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for his involvement in one of the biggest crypto scam projects. Ignatova, who was included in the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, is rumored to have been murdered in...Read More
Four Chinese nationals and one from Laos were arrested by Thailand’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) in connection with a fraudulent crypto investment platform that swindled over 2.7 billion Baht (worth around $76 million) from local investors. According to the report by the Bangkok Post, the individuals duped 3,280 residents after operating a fraudulent scheme...Read More
Prominent blockchain investigator ZachXBT has yet again accused four popular crypto traders of a pump-and-dump scheme. At the center of the controversy are – TraderNJ, PetaByte, XO, and Trader SZ – who allegedly profited from the gains at the expense of their followers. There are many telltale signs of a pump-and-dump scheme. The crypto industry,...Read More
Decentralized finance (DeFi) cross-chain bridge Synapse revealed that a liquidity provider dumped 9 million SYN tokens, which crashed the price of the native token by over 22% from $0.4 to $0.31 on September 5th. The price has since recovered, and SYN is currently trading at $0.36. The project confirmed that there was no security breach...Read More
A resident of Norfolk, the United Kingdom, has reportedly lost her life savings (more than $200,000) after falling prey to cryptocurrency fraudsters. This is hardly the first such scheme in the country that has resulted in substantial losses. David Lindberg – Chief Executive of retail banking at NatWest – has previously warned local investors to...Read More
