Canadian blockchain firm Vanbex has filed a lawsuit against its former contractor for spreading false and defamatory statements about the firm, as Vanbex announced on May 1. On March 14, Canadian police froze personal assets of the firm’s founders Kevin Hobbs and Lisa Cheng due to an allegedly fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO). According to court documents, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) determined that Vanbex founders Kevin Hobbs and Lisa Cheng were defrauding investors by offering investment in its token Etherparty (FUEL), while intending to use investor funds for personal benefit, rather than developing products. Following the reports, Vanbex’s …

A 190% increase in cryptocurrency scams saw Australian consumers lose $6.1 million Australian dollars ($4.3 million) in 2018, according to a report released by the country’s Competition and Consumer Commission on April 29. The substantial rise from the AU$2.1 million ($1.48 million) lost in 2017 came despite an industry wide slump in cryptocurrency prices, with Australian authorities receiving 674 reports where crypto was used to pay scammers. Most of the victims were targeted by investment scams where they are encouraged to purchase digital currencies or asked to make crypto payments for access to forex trading, commodity trading and other investment …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have jointly issued an alert warning investors against fraudulent websites purporting to operate advisory and trading businesses. The alert, issued by the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the CFTC’s Office of Customer Education and Outreach, was published on April 24. The warning states that staff from both agencies have recently observed crypto-related investment scams where bad actors are touting “digital asset or ‘cryptocurrency’ advisory and trading businesses,” in some cases claiming they can invest clients’ funds in special crypto trading systems or …

A 13-count indictment has been filed in the United States District Court in Portland, Oregon, charging two men with the theft of 10.88 bitcoin (BTC) worth roughly $59,000 as part of an allegedly fraudulent investment scheme. The development was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon in a news release published by the Department of Justice on April 24. The two men — whom the government believes received more than 50 BTC over the course of their operations — are both Nigerian nationals, and are identified as Onwuemerie Ogor Gift, 24, and Kelvin Usifoh, whose age …

Estonia-based crypto firm Paxful Inc. has been accused of defrauding thousands of Nigerian investors out of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies through allegedly arbitrary account closures. The news was reported by local media agency Punch on April 7. According to the report, the Nigerian non-profit organization United Global Resolve for Peace (UGRP) filed a petition on April 2 with the country’s financial watchdog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which outlines Paxful’s Inc.’s alleged malign practices and their impact on its Nigerian client base. Signed by UGRP executive director Shalom Olaseni, the petition alleges that: “Cryptocurrency trading and …

The bear market has not been easy on the crypto market, especially when it comes to initial coin offerings (ICOs). The demand for small-value tokens issued by relatively unknown projects — some of which eventually might or might not turn out to be viable investments — has been dying out, and the days of “to the moon” meme seem to be well behind. Now, people who jumped on the ICO bandwagon a bit too late are looking for a way out. Enter Ivan Komar, the 21-year-old owner of a startup called “Sponsy,” who is trying to sell his project on …

Cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC appealed to the specificity of its cryptography in an ongoing dispute with the team behind altcoin Bitcoin Private (BTCP). The post was published on HitBTC’s blog on Tuesday, March 26. The dispute involves HitBTC’s delisting of the altcoin, whose team then accused the exchange of fraud. HitBTC, currently ranked by CoinMarketCap as the world’s 15th largest exchange by adjusted daily trade volume, claims that the BTCP team had offered an “unsuitable” solution for moving its funds prior to a scheduled coinburn. In the recent blog post — titled “Explanation of the situation with BTCP” — the exchange …

United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard P. Donoghue unsealed a nine-count indictment against Patrick McDonnell today, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DoJ) on March 26. Following his arrest earlier today, McDonnell — the owner and operators of purported investment firm CabbageTech — was charged with nine counts of wire fraud in connection with an alleged plan to defraud cryptocurrency investors. Donoghue said in the press release: “As alleged, the defendant defrauded investors by making false promises and sending them fraudulent balance statements, hiding the fact that he was stealing their …

Law enforcement in Mumbai, India have arrested four more suspects allegedly involved in a cryptocurrency scam that amassed an estimated 1 billion rupees (over $14 million). English-language daily media outlet The Times of India reported on the arrests on March 22. Per the report, the police arrested Ashok Goyal Jaipuria, Asif Malpani, Baljit Singh Saini and Pradeep Arora from Delhi. Several of Goyal’s bank accounts have been reportedly frozen as well, since he is allegedly the head of the scheme. The Times of India also states that an unnamed Bollywood actor who reportedly attended promotional events of the scam will …

Blockchain protocol EOS (EOS) has dismissed worries over a recent transaction that hypothetically would be worth over $3 trillion. As picked up by Whale Alert, a Twitter account monitoring large transactions on cryptocurrency blockchains, an EOS user named “f***hacker.x” succeeded in creating a transaction for 1 trillion EOS tokens ($3.61 trillion). The transaction, which ultimately failed due to its size being far greater than the total circulating EOS supply, initially raised concern. At press time, EOS is trading at around $3.61 with a total market cap of around $3.2 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data. Commenting to Whale Alert on Twitter, …

Bitcoin Private (BTCP) developers have accused cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC of acting in a fraudulent manner in regards to their delisting from the exchange following a planned coinburn. The accusations are portrayed in a letter written on Feb. 26 to the exchange by the Petros Law Group on behalf of the BTCP community, developers and contributors, and published by the Bitcoin Private Twitter profile on March 9. According to its authors, the letter — which was published the day BTCP was delisted from HitBTC — alleges that HitBTC attempted to extort BTCP following unresolved complications arising from the coinburn. According to …

Morgan Rockcoons, also known as Morgan Rockwell, has pleaded guilty to two cryptocurrency-related charges in San Diego federal court this week. Rockcoons admitted both to selling land he didn’t have for a crypto city project dubbed “Bitcointopia” and to operating a money transmitting business without a license, daily news outlet the Los Angeles Times (LA Times) reported on March 8. Per the report, Rockcoons first attracted the attention of law enforcement in 2015 with his Bitcoin (BTC)-fiat currency exchange services, which he advertised online. The LA Times reports that under United States federal law, businesses exchanging crypto for cash in …