Tagged: fraud

January 22, 2019 @ 11:58 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Two executives from the Korean cryptocurrency Komid have been imprisoned for creating fake volume on the exchange in order to deceive investors, Korean media outlet Blockinpress reports. Komid Choi has reportedly been sentenced in Seoul to three year’s imprisonment for fraud and embezzlement, and an accomplice, Park… Read More

January 22, 2019 @ 11:07 am By Cali Haan  |  

Seven men police believe conspired to rob multiple Bitcoin “mines” in Iceland have been convicted, and their leader sentenced to 4.5 years in prison, Icelandic news outlet DV reports. Starting in December 2017, and for several weeks thereafter, six men led by Sindri Thor Steffanson allegedly robbed… Read More

January 19, 2019 @ 10:35 am By Cali Haan  |  

Seven individuals have been arrested in Taiwan and charged with operating a crypto investment scheme police believe defrauded 1000 investors out of $51 million USD, Focus Taiwan reports. The seven are charged with “violating multiple banking and business…laws” covered by Taiwan’s Banking and Multi-Level Marketing Supervision acts. Among… Read More

January 11, 2019 @ 7:03 am By Cali Haan  |  

A Maltese-Italian actor and model named Davide Tucci has taken to Facebook to warn the public that his face and name are being used in fake Facebook ads, on websites and and in articles to promote Bitcoin-related scams, Malta Today reports. According to Tucci in… Read More

January 9, 2019 @ 2:37 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Riksbank of Sweden has issued a warning to the public that, “On certain websites and in social media, false information is circulating claiming that the Riksbank is selling e-kronas.” The Riksbank also says it has been contacted by individuals saying they have been solicited… Read More

January 8, 2019 @ 10:04 pm By Cali Haan  |  

John Bigatton, a licensed Australian finance professional who promote, Bitconnect, an apparent $2.6 billion USD cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that collapsed last January, has had his assets frozen by an Australian federal judge and has been banned from traveling, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Bigatton is… Read More

January 8, 2019 @ 12:37 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Police in India say they have arrested the second-in-command of an elaborate crypto fraud that bilked investors out of 5 billion rupees (~$71.6 million USD), The Indian Express reports. The man, Rohit Kumar, has now been charged with cheating, criminal conspiracy and violation of the… Read More

January 3, 2019 @ 8:10 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Trulioo, an on-demand global identity verification company, announced on Thursday it now verifies customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia through its electronic identity verification platform, GlobalGateway, helping to mitigate money laundering and fraud in two of the world’s fastest growing markets. The company reported: “The Czech… Read More

January 2, 2019 @ 8:39 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Georgia State Senator Michael Williams has been charged with insurance fraud and making a false report of a crime after police and an insurance company debunked claims made by Williams last May relating to the reported theft from his Gainesville campaign office of $300 000 worth… Read More

January 2, 2019 @ 7:30 am By Cali Haan  |  

Dr. Philip Frost, a biotech billionaire accused of “fleecing investors…(in) lucrative market manipulation schemes” has agreed to pay $5.5 million in penalties to the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), CNBC reports. Frost is a business associate of Barry Honig, the accused ringleader int he alleged… Read More

January 2, 2019 @ 7:18 am By Cali Haan  |  

A freedom-of-information request filed by The Sunday Telegraph shows that four-fifths of 49 companies investigated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) resulted in warnings about those companies being issued to the public. A total of 67 investigations into crypto operations have been launched by the FCA. 18 investigations are… Read More

December 31, 2018 @ 9:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

Reporters at The Wall Street Journal have identified 513 cryptocurrency projects using plagiarized language, listing false “team members” and promising outsize returns to lure investors. Reporters used automated key-word search tools and human scrutiny to to trawl 3300 crypto white papers for evidence of misconduct. All… Read More

December 26, 2018 @ 10:30 am By Cali Haan  |  

A team of seven economist scholars has found that pump and dump schemes in cryptocurrency trading are ‘pervasive’: “The surge of interest in cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of fraud. This paper examines a pervasive tactic long known to financial markets: pump and… Read More

December 26, 2018 @ 4:44 am By Cali Haan  |  

Individuals behind a “fork-merge” of Bitcoin and a fork of ZCash called ZClassic, “Bitcoin Private,” are in hot water this week on Twitter following the publication of an article by CoinMetrics that alleges they secretly pre-mined and vested themselves with BTCP coins and failed to disclose these… Read More

December 23, 2018 @ 9:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

Cybercrime police in the Indian city of Pune have arrested 10 individuals accused of defrauding 8000 investors in a Bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme called “GB21.” According to The Times of India, the leader of the scheme, Amit Bharadwaj, and his brother Vivek, ran a company called Gain Bitcoin,… Read More

December 22, 2018 @ 2:14 pm By Cali Haan  |  

About one week after its CEO delivered a keynote address to the Korean parliament on the regulation of crypto markets there, the Upbit cryptocurrency exchange’s board chair, finance director and an employee have been indicted for allegedly, “inflat(ing) the volume of transactions by making ($226.2… Read More

December 19, 2018 @ 1:33 am By Cali Haan  |  

A Romanian citizen arrested last week by local cyber police and American Secret Service agents has been released on bail in the city of Cluj where he runs one of the region’s largest crypto exchanges. The agents flew to Romania to seek the arrest and… Read More

December 17, 2018 @ 10:03 pm By JD Alois  |  

Consob (Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa) the Italian agency that regulates the securities industry, has put a halt to two crypto-based offerings, according to postings on their site. Both companies have received a 90 day suspension on a “precautionary basis” and are banned… Read More

December 14, 2018 @ 9:32 am By Onki Kwan  |  

Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been actively pursuing all players in the initial coin offering (ICO) space, including companies that have raised money with ICOs, an exchange, people promoting ICOs, and most recently, an ICO investment fund. The SEC’s recent actions are… Read More

December 8, 2018 @ 2:29 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Division of  Enforcement, told an audience at Harvard Law School this week that, given the increasingly cross-border nature of ICO and securities fundraising, “Collaboration with international regulators and law enforcement is critical to the SEC’s civil law enforcement success.”… Read More