Tagged: fraud

February 28, 2019 @ 10:31 am By Cali Haan  |  

The US District Court of Massachusetts has indicted Randall Crater, the man they allege led a “My Big Coin” cryptocurrency fraud that bilked primarily New York investors out of $6 million USD. Crater is charged with four counts of wire fraud and three counts of unlawful… Read More

February 28, 2019 @ 1:44 am By Cali Haan  |  

A man who promised astronomical returns to investors in “KBC Coin” (a cryptocurrency named after India’s popular Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) TV game show) has been arrested by police in Mumbai, The Hindu and Hard Fork report. Pritam Patil was reportedly apprehended after Nanasaheb Patil, an agricultural… Read More

February 27, 2019 @ 11:39 am By JD Alois  |  

Movie director Daniel Adams and music producer Michael Flanders, and companies under their control have been charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The allegations of fraud are associated with the production of the film: An L.A. Minute. Adams has been involved… Read More

February 24, 2019 @ 10:20 am By Cali Haan  |  

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian citizen accused of laundering billions while allegedly running the BTC-e Bitcoin exchange in London, has ended his 80-day hunger strike, Urdu Point reports. Vinnik was detained in the summer of 2017 after being arrested while vacationing in Greece with his family…. Read More

February 22, 2019 @ 12:09 pm By Cali Haan  |  

UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, was fined 4.5 billion Euros ($5.1 billion USD) Wednesday for “aggravated money-laundering of the proceeds of tax fraud” as well as “illegal bank soliciting” for its alleged role in helping wealthy French citizens avoid taxes, Associated Press reports. Five former UBS… Read More

February 20, 2019 @ 3:04 am By Cali Haan  |  

Police in India have arrested four and are seeking a fifth suspect whom they believe used a cryptocurrency scam to steal 1 billion rupees (nearly $14 million) from investors in Mumbai, Surat, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh, Times of India reports. The men, Sanjay Sontakke, 44; Rajnikant Kumavat, 46; Alpesh… Read More

February 20, 2019 @ 2:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

30 investors in Thailand who say they were defrauded of 42 million baht ($1.34 million USD) by the owner of a Bitcoin mining scheme formally complained Monday to the Thai Technology Crime Suppression Division, The Bangkok Post reports. Police say a total of 140 investors have now… Read More

February 19, 2019 @ 6:43 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Netherlands-based payments news outlet The Paypers has published an interview with an unnamed investigator from the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), America’s domestic intelligence and security agency, in which the agent suggested a direct correlation between the number of ERC-20 tokens in circulation and the number of… Read More

February 18, 2019 @ 7:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security has revealed that over 380 peer to peer lending platforms are currently under investigation. A release by Xinhua on Sunday said that about USD $1.5 billion in P2P lending assets were involved. Apparently, the Chinese police have seized or frozen cash,… Read More

February 17, 2019 @ 4:49 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Be careful: that romantic email from an unknown suitor could end up grabbing your data. So say cybersecurity researchers at the Mimecast Threat Labs, who warned the public this week that random emails offering gifts, flowers or other friendly gestures may contain infectious links designed… Read More

February 15, 2019 @ 10:57 pm By JD Alois  |  

There has been a good amount of discussion regarding the decision by Judge Gonzalo Curiel, of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, to grant the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) bid for a preliminary injunction against crypto company Blockvest LLC. Initially, the Court… Read More

February 15, 2019 @ 8:46 am By JD Alois  |  

In a valentine’s day reprieve, the Securities and Exchange Commission was granted a preliminary injunction against Blockvest LLC and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold, III, pertaining to allegations of fraud connected with an initial coin offering (ICO). The judge overseeing the proceedings reconsidered the court’s previous order… Read More

February 14, 2019 @ 1:04 am By Cali Haan  |  

A “nationwide simultaneous operation” executed in 8 Turkish provinces has netted 24 individuals accused of conspiring to rob 13 million Turkish liras ($2.47 million) from “a cryptocurrency company” in Istanbul, The Daily Sabah reports. After receiving a complaint from the targeted business, law enforcement officers at… Read More

February 9, 2019 @ 8:52 am By Cali Haan  |  

The latest enforcement report from the Texas State Securities Board states that the regulator issued cease and desist orders against 16 unlicensed crypto ventures soliciting investors in Texas in 2018. The most noteworthy of those ventures is Bitconnect, a massive global crypto Ponzi scheme that accumulated… Read More

February 6, 2019 @ 1:16 am By Cali Haan  |  

20-year-old Dawson Bakies of Ohio has been charged with multiple counts of felony Identity Theft, Grand Larceny, Computer Tampering, Scheme to Defraud and other related felony and misdemeanor counts relating to alleged SIM-swap hacks on more than 50 victims across the US. The indictment of Bakies for… Read More

February 3, 2019 @ 1:09 pm By Cali Haan  |  

An Italian court has ordered the owner of the BitGrail cryptocurrency exchange, Francesco Firano, to declare bankruptcy and forfeit assets so they can be used to reimburse investors harmed when Firano “lost” 17 million Nano tokens (worth $170 million), a post by affected investors claims…. Read More

February 3, 2019 @ 10:53 am By Cali Haan  |  

Joel Ortiz, a 20-year-old California college student, has accepted a plea deal and has agreed to a sentence of 10 years for stealing $5 million in cryptocurrencies from victims he robbed via SIM-swap hack, Motherboard reports. Ortiz will be sentenced on March 14, and it… Read More

January 30, 2019 @ 3:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

Hackers may have created a fake LocalBitcoin forum page for the popular global peer-to-peer Bitcoins trading service LocalBitcoins, thereby conning “a number” of affected users out of disclosing the info needed to steal their digital coins. According to a report from LocalBitcoins on Reddit, the… Read More

January 29, 2019 @ 10:37 am By JD Alois  |  

CipherTrace is out with a report on cryptocurrency scams and fraud. It is widely known that crypto suffers from rampant acts of theft and cons as these digital assets have become the targets of global criminals seeking an easy payday or simply to launder illicit… Read More

January 29, 2019 @ 8:06 am By JD Alois  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued another warning regarding bogus websites promoting fraudulent cryptocurrency investments that are claimed to be supported by the government of Singapore. MAS provided a single example of a fabricated CNBC site that prominently states: “Singapore Officially Backs a… Read More