New York City resident Vitalii Antonenko was charged for allegedly participating in a $94 million Bitcoins-for-cards scheme, according to a May 27 statement from the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. He is now facing up to 20 years in jail and $500,000 in fines. Antonenko was arrested in March 2019 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after he arrived there from Ukraine carrying devices “that held hundreds of thousands of stolen payment card numbers”. According to the prosecution, the suspect and his co-conspirators used SQL injection attacks to extract payment card data from vulnerable …

Ellis Pinksy, the hacker who allegedly masterminded the theft of $23.8 million worth of crypto from pioneering investor, Michael Terpin, planned on retiring after the heist at the age of 15. However, after turning 18, Pinsky became the subject of a $71.4 million civil suit from Michael Terpin, who is seeking damages equal to triple the sum that was stolen three years ago. 18-year-old sued for $71.4 million for crypto theft At one point, Pinsky allegedly told the informant “I could buy you and all your family. I have 100 million dollars.” In the complaint, the acquaintance also noted spotting …

With the official release date of digital yuan being kept in the dark, third-party actors have stepped in to impersonate the digital yuan officials, hoping to attract gullible investors. A recent press statement issued by a company called Yuan Pay Group mentions the release of “the e-Yuan”, a currency which allegedly allows the government of China to use smart contracts “to track assets and liabilities and to ensure that multiple loans are not taken over the same collateral." “The circulation of the currency will be controlled by the state,” the statement reads. Site shows several red flags Yuan Pay Group’s …

Chinese authorities have dismantled a group of alleged scammers posing as Huobi exchange officials, who were operating an over-the-counter (OTC) website. As reported by local media outlet Jinse, on May 20 police arrested 12 suspects in Guangdong province believed to be behind the scheme, after an investigation found that WeChat crypto trading groups had been infiltrated from November 2019. Scammers persuaded victims to invest in the fake OTC platform, which was used for money laundering, and then sent the defrauded money to overseas accounts. Fraud committed through WeChat Local authorities announced that they seized computers, mobile phones, bank cards, and …

The Shanghai branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) published an article detailing the signs of a financial scam, mentioning virtual currency and blockchain as signs of a fraudulent offering. The article, published on May 12 on Chinese social media platform QQ, consists of 16 answers to common questions that explain what are the signs of a securities fraud. While the article includes explanations for a variety of traditional fraud mechanisms, it also urges to be especially careful when dealing with “virtual currency” and “blockchain.” The recommendation is part of a generic “cheat sheet” that also includes fraud schemes …

Global losses from cryptocurrency fraud and theft surged massively in 2019, doubling from 2018. Despite multiple efforts to tackle fraudulent crypto schemes, countries like Belgium continued to suffer losses to crypto fraudsters. According to a May 8 report by Belgian newspaper De Tijd, Belgium’s economic inspectorate reported 2.94 million euros ($3.2 million) in losses due to cryptocurrency fraud in 2019. Figures continue to grow, but real numbers are apparently unreported The recent figures show that the number of crypto fraud cases in Belgium has been growing in recent years. In 2018, Belgian’s Federal Public Service, known as FPS Economy, reported …

The “hack” of the DAO runs deep into the collective memory of the cryptocurrency community. After an extremely successful crowdfund in May 2016, the DAO lasted a little over a month before an attacker started to drain funds from the smart contract, taking around $70 million worth of Ether (ETH). However, as some pointed out at the time, the DAO incident was not a hack at all. The attacker simply exploited a vulnerability in the underlying smart contract code to make it behave in a way that the programmers didn’t expect. Nevertheless, the incident divided the Ethereum community after a …

The Commodity and Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC) has charged executives of American and Israeli firms for an alleged $15 million scam involving cryptocurrencies and binary options. Court documents filed on May 5 mention two major scams, the first involving binary options, which was carried out between October 2013 and November 2016, and the second involving digital assets, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), which was carried out between November 2013 and August 2018. The CFTC charged Israel-based Tal Valariola and Itay Barak of Digital Platinum Limited for aiding the United States-based firm All In Publishing (AIP) to create and …

Long-time Venezuelan actor and singer, Fernando Carrillo, has announced his retirement from acting. He has decided instead to venture into the crypto business. Starting May 1, Carrillo will become the CEO of Fight to Fame, though his role only extends to Mexico and the Latin American region. According to an article published on April 29 by the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, Carrillo will lead the Singapore-based crypto firm founded by Morgan Shi. This company is known for issuing the FF Token. Actor sees Blockchain as the “future” Fernando, who is known for serial dramas such as “Siempre te amaré” and …

Internet tech support and consulting player KDH Consulting Group recently filed an official complaint against crypto investment management firm Iterative Capital Management for alleged fraud and misdirection. Accusations include "fraud and breach of fiduciary duties, among other things," the April 27 filling stated. Iterative Capital allegedly lied Iterative Capital allegedly falsely boasted of previous crypto investment and trading success and liquidity related to a “hedge fund-like” account, which they urged KDH to join. Instead of using the capital as stated, for crypto investment and trading profit, the filing accuses Iterative Capital of taking the assets appropriated to the account and …

The co-founders of Bidooh, a British digital advertising firm, admitted to stealing intellectual property from their own company with the intention of selling it to third-parties. The firm created facial analytics software for use in advertisement, after ending a $3 million initial coin offering, or ICO, in 2018. As reported on April 20 by Prolific North, a U.K. local news outlet, Bidooh’s co-founders, Abdul Alim and Shahzad Mughal, were accused of creating a clone of their own company and selling Bidooh’s products to third parties. This was likely done to avoid sharing revenue with other Bidooh shareholders. In August 2019, …

The Ripple Army has sent more than 8.5 million XRP to known fake airdrops and YouTube giveaway scams in the past year, according to a new community site set up to combat fraud on the blockchain. XRP data aggregator xrplorer, which is still in beta, posted the data to Twitter on April 23, said that XRP holders had withdrawn six million tokens in 2019 and sent them to addresses associated with giveaway scams. It reported almost three million people have done the same so far for 2020. Source: Twitter Funds from these crypto scams ended up on nearly every major …