Alleged crypto Ponzi scheme targeting Spanish speakers freezes user funds

The team behind Arbistar, a crypto trading bot developer, announced that it would be shutting down a popular trading tool known as Community Bot.

According to a press release published by Arbicorp, the company that runs Arbistar, the platform is not currently allowing deposits. All funds have been frozen, preventing users from withdrawing their money. Users are not even able to access crypto from funds that trade with other bots. 

This has led financial forensic firm, Tulip Research, to warn users that Arbicorp is actually a billion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme — a claim they say they have made “many times”:

“Arbistar has used BTCPayServer for the last year taking advantage of the PayJoin functionality to hide the money trail. Before its implementation, it was possible to trace without problem the different movements that the company made with the incoming capital. By applying heuristic methods, different addresses can be related to a single organization.”

By checking the address pool before preceding the BTCPayServer, and taking into account that they have linked the final addresses with the old ones, Tulip Research stated that they were able to check the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) that entered Airbistar’s accounts.

Cointelegraph Spanish reported that the “Community Bot” had been paying a 28% excess over the actual profits for 46 weeks. This has generated, according to the directors, a "hole" in the bot's accounts. Arbistar stated:

“At that time, an error in the configuration of the profits made the figure obtained in the markets (exchanges) with the Arbitration Bot (community bot) WAY LOWER than what is actually detailed on the platform. Therefore, we have been producing higher profits on the platform for almost one year than was actually achieved in the markets.”

In a video published on YouTube, Arbistar CEO Santi Fuentes said that the company intends to return the funds to customers via daily payments starting on Sept. 15.

Arbistar warned, however, that if users decide to take legal action against the company, they “will block the funds” pending a judicial resolution.