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Showing posts with the label fraud

UK street gang launders drug funds with memecoin, report

A UK street gang involved in fraud, drug dealing, and extortion is paying people to launch OneCoin-style memecoins and “dump” on their investors in order to launder illicit profits. Expert witness and drug crime specialist Gary Carroll, who revealed the memecoin laundering scheme to The Daily Mail, claimed that “mid-level” members of one particular gang are launching memecoins and have hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund it. Neither The Daily Mail nor Carroll were willing to reveal the memecoin in question in order to protect the identity of Carroll’s sources. He did, however, say that the gang is “not a household name,” while the paper conceded that the coin in question bears a “ passing resemblance” to OneCoin , the billion-dollar crypto pyramid scheme that spawned a worldwide manhunt.  Hayden Davis still making millions from LIBRA, MELANIA memecoins Read more: Andrew Tate struggles to pump memecoin amid Florida criminal inquiry The plot is active,...

South Korea crypto scammer had plastic surgery to evade police

Police in South Korea have arrested the leader of a 16 billion won ($12 million) cryptocurrency scam who underwent almost $16,000 worth of plastic surgery to evade authorities.  As reported by the Straits Times, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency says the scammer was on the run for 10 months after failing to attend a pre-trial detention hearing in September 2023.  During his time as a fugitive, the man reportedly spent 21 million won ($15,746) on plastic surgery to alter his appearance, specifically his eyes, nose, and the shape of his face. He is also said to have worn a number of wigs.  North Korean hackers posing as devs exposed with ‘I Hate Kim Jong Un’ test Read more: Bitsonic chief sentenced to 7 years for crypto theft in South Korea Police claim that the man is behind a cryptocurrency mining scam that promised investors a monthly return of 18% and managed to defraud 158 victims between November 2021 and June 2022. Victims’ losses ranged from 1.2 million won ($900)...

SBF trial day 4: witness recounts Alameda’s $65b credit line and alleged unlimited FTX withdrawals

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Gary Wang told prosecutors that Alameda Research withdrew more value from FTX than the exchange made from fees, owing $20 billion once, while Judge Kaplan reprimanded defense attorneys for repetitive questioning on SBF’s trial day 4. Former FTX CTO Gary Wang named founder Sam Bankman-Fried as a co-conspirator of fraud on day 3 of SBF’s trial. Paradigm’s Matt Huang said his VC marked down $278 million invested in Sam’s crypto exchange and Adam Yedidia detailed a “code error” that fostered Alameda’s unusual overcast on customer assets. Amid caches of overruled defense objections and the prosecution’s search for smoking guns, curtains closed on the third day of Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial for fraud. The former FTX CTO testified to acts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and commodities fraud. Wang, who worked for both FTX and Alameda, said Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Sam Bankman-Fried were in on it too. SBF has denied criminal wrongdoing, but the other three pled guilt...

Connecticut authorities recover $3m worth of Bitcoin from scammers  

Westport, Connecticut police assisted a crypto investor in reclaiming over $3 million in Bitcoin (BTC) after they fell victim to a high-profile financial scam. Westport police thwart BTC scam  In May, the Westport police reportedly initiated an investigation following a report from a victim, who had been persuaded to transfer funds from their retirement account to a Kraken crypto exchange wallet address January, as stated by Lt. Eric Woods in a news release.  Between January and March, the victim discovered that over $3 million worth of Bitcoin had been withdrawn and moved to cryptocurrency wallets beyond their control. Collaborating with the Connecticut State Police, Westport detectives diligently traced the transactions and successfully froze all accounts linked to the scam, as confirmed by Woods. As a result of these efforts, authorities successfully recovered over  $3 million, which has now been returned to the victim. Woods also clarified that the frozen accou...

Thai officials arrest five in connection with $76m crypto scam

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Four Chinese nationals and a Lao citizen were arrest ed over their role in a crypto currency fraud that caused victims 2.7 billion Baht (approximately 76 million) worth of losses. The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) of Thailand shared that at least 3,280 people have fallen victim to this crypto currency scam, with reports occurring since November 2022, The Bangkok Post reported. Not just one case of fraud Victims were said to being approached by strangers or foreigners who invited them to invest using foreign mobile apps and other online platforms, promising a high return on investment. Pol Col Kissana, the spokesperson for the CCIB, shared that many victims invested their life savings into this scam, even taking out a second mortgage on their land or home. The investigation found that several of the people running the fraudulent website (bchgloballtd.com) were also linked to other fake platforms. With support from Homeland Security Investigation and other law enforcement ...

Nima Capital’s 9m SYN token dump ignites VC rug pull fears

Nima Capital, a family office involved in crypto investments, is facing accusations of initiating a rug pull with the grant token s of their partner, the cross-chain bridge platform Synapse. On Sept. 5, the decentralized finance (DeFi) cross-chain bridge Synapse witnessed a sharp decline in the value of its native token (SYN) following the sudden removal of nearly 9 million SYN token s and the withdrawal of all stablecoin liquidity from the bridge by an unidentified liquidity provider. Synapse’s official X account swiftly responded to the incident, confirming the liquidity rug but reassuring users that there had been no security breach on the Synapse bridge. The focus soon shifted to identifying the unknown liquidity provider responsible for this drastic action. A Synapse liquidity provider sold their SYN token s and removed liquidity today. We're investigating unusual activity on their wallets and are working to get in touch with them. Will update once there is more inf...