The FTC published an alert of a new version of a scam involving cryptocurrencies. The scam has three key components, an impersonator, a QR code and a crypto ATM where the victims will be directed to send money. According to the FTC, fraudsters pretend to be public officials, law enforcement agents or employees of local utility companies. The imposters also utilize dating apps and pretend to be potential romantic partners or call victims to announce that you’ve won a prize. No matter how it starts, it always ends up with the scammer asking for money. If the user falls for …

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) reportedly issued a formal notice to crypto exchange Binance in an effort to identify links around a multi-million crypto scam in the region. The government of Pakistan started a criminal investigation after receiving numerous complaints against an ongoing scam that involved misleading investors into sending funds from Binance wallets to unknown 3rd-party wallets. According to local coverage, the FIA’s Cyber Crime Wing has issued an order of attendance to Binance Pakistan’s GM Hamza Khan to identify the exchange’s link to "fraudulent online investment mobile applications.” KARACHI: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has detected an online fraud …

BSC-based yield farming protocol Arbix Finance was identified by blockchain security company Certik as a rug pull. According to the firm’s incident analysis, there were several reasons why the project was flagged. The security firm cites that the ARBX contract has mint() with onlyOwner function, 10 million ARBX tokens were minted to 8 addresses, and 4.5 million ARBX were minted to a single address. Following this, Certik confirmed that the 4.5M minted tokens were then dumped. The firm also reported that the $10 million in funds deposited by users were directed to pools that are unverified, and eventually, a hacker …

Indian crypto exchange WazirX has reportedly paid over $6.62 million (49.2 crore rupees) following non-payment of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on trade commissions. The total recovery includes the pending tax of $5.43 million (40.5 crore rupees), the interest and a penalty for non-payment. Government officials from the Central GST and Central Excise committee (CGST Mumbai Zone) recovered the funds from the crypto exchange after detecting a GST evasion of $5.43 million on the commissions. A typical GST fraud involves creating fake invoices without actually moving the goods between the seller and the buyer. Officers of CGST Mumbai East comm'te …

Goel highlighted the various methods that are actively being used by fraudsters to dupe investors such as lucrative investment opportunities, illegitimate bank transfers and cryptocurrencies. Acknowledging the growth of Indian crypto users, Goel added: “They [fraudsters] ask you to share your cryptocurrency details. And once you put it in your wallet, then the money is taken away.” After simplifying the elaborate fraud in a sentence, Goel also highlighted that sixteen such cases have been registered involving cryptocurrencies. The Additional Commissioner of Police Shikha Goel warned Indian citizens about the rise in cybercrime in an event hosted by the city police …

The United States Department of Justice is planning to sell $56 million worth of cryptocurrency seized in connection with its case against Ponzi scheme BitConnect. In a Nov. 16 announcement, the Justice Department said it would sell the seized crypto and hold the proceeds in U.S. dollars until it could use the funds to provide restitution to BitConnect victims. The U.S. government is currently holding the $56 million in crypto in wallets, and said the amount of compensation to those affected by BitConnect’s fraud would depend on a “future restitution order by the court at sentencing.” “This liquidation is the …

Members of the EOS ecosystem, a blockchain designed to power decentralized applications, or dApps, are voicing their dissatisfaction with former developer Block.one. As a result, they have formed their own organization and elected new leadership in an effort to revamp the network. As accessed by Cointelegraph, Yves La Rose, the "community-elected CEO" of the novel EOS Foundation, gave the following prepared statement during a virtual conference: “There's no sugar-coating it, EOS as it stands is a failure. The last three years or so have been nothing but dwindling in terms of market cap and in terms of token value. When …

A Connecticut Jury has found that digital assets linked to cryptocurrencies are not securities in what a defense lawyer called a world-first verdict. GAW Miners investor Stuart Fraser was cleared of liability in a fraudulent operation co-opted by ZenMiner LLC on Nov. 1. "It's the first case that we know of where a jury addressed whether cryptocurrency products were securities," one of the defendant’s representatives, Daniel Weiner from Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, told Law360. The case against GAW Miners has been underway since 2017, when co-founder Homero Joshua Garza pled guilty to wire fraud. This left Frazer, a 41% …

“Sooner or later, ETH will outpace Bitcoin and become the global standard,” said Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. Nailwal believes that Ethereum will eventually become "the ultimate settlement layer" for the decentralized finance, or DeFi, space. Polygon will play a major role in ensuring the long-term success of Ethereum through its scalability solution. Despite increasing competition from other layer-one protocols, such as Solana, Nailwal believes it is still too early to talk about an “Ethereum killer.” “The Ethereum chain, because of its fundamentals, security, the level of decentralization, and the community and the trust that …

Bitcoin.org, one of the first websites about Bitcoin (BTC), has been hacked by online scammers and down as of the time of writing. Cobra, Bitcoin.org’s anonymous curator, announced on Sept. 23 that Bitcoin.org was compromised, with hackers managing to put up a scam notice on the site. “Looks like Bitcoin.org got hacked and the entire site replaced with a scam asking for free Bitcoin. Do not send funds to that address,” Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo reported on Twitter. Following a query from Corallo, Namecheap temporarily disabled the website. According to Cobra, the Bitcoin.org website “may be down for a few …

Last week, some former users of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Cryptsy received a notice informing them of a new turn in the ongoing class settlement process. Authorized by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the document states that those who were defrauded in the 2016 collapse of the digital finance platform may be entitled to receive money from additional recovery. Cryptsy was a crypto exchange that went bust in January 2016 following months of user-reported issues with withdrawing funds from the platform. The court later found that Cryptsy founder Paul Vernon had stolen millions of …

India’s state-owned telecom Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has registered 7,477 businesses on its blockchain-based communication platform after authorities imposed new regulations to protect consumers from spam and fraud. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) established messaging regulations that require scrubbing consumer communication messages to ensure that the receiver of the message has opted in for such interactions. The drive is supported by BSNL DLT, a content verification platform built on ledger-based blockchain protocols. As the SMS regulation is applicable for all industry verticals, the list of 7,477 registrations includes banks, educational institutions and private businesses. TRAI had reportedly …