Six executives from the $1.5 billion (2 trillion won) South Korean crypto exchange fraud V Global have received prison sentences up to eight years — but three were not detained so they could fight certain charges in court. V Global operated between July 2020 and April 2021, and roped in around 50,000 investors by promising 300% returns on investments alongside sizable payments for referring new customers. According to a translation of Dec. 26 reports from South Korean media outlets such as Economist.co.kr, two high-ranking execs, named Mr Yang and Mr Oh, got eight years and three years apiece for their …

Defrost Finance, the decentralized trading platform that suffered a $12 million exploit leading up to Christmas, has denied allegations that it had “rugged” its users as part of an elaborate “exit scam.” On Dec. 23, the platform announced it suffered a flash loan attack, leading to the draining of user funds from its V2 protocol. One day later, another incident saw a hacker steal the admin key for a second “much larger” attack on the V1 protocol. It’s understood the attacker(s) conducted the flash loan attack by adding a fake collateral token and a malicious price oracle to liquidate users. …

Professional scam organizations are targeting cryptocurrency users following the collapse of FTX, initiating millions of automated calls and text messages in an attempt to swindle information and funds. Clayton LiaBraaten, senior executive adviser at Truecaller — an app that helps identify scam callers and messages — spoke to Cointelegraph, scammers often closely follow crypto news to better prey on their victims: “Fraudsters love volatility and current events. Anytime they can try to surf the contours of something very disruptive in the marketplace they have a great deal of success.” LiaBraaten said that Truecaller also saw an increase in scam communications …

Crypto-based scams are constantly sweeping the nonfungible token (NFT) space; therefore, staying updated is the most significant way to prevent both new and existing NFT scams. Other than fraud, intense rivalry for newly minted NFTs may cause prices to rise and transaction fees to skyrocket, making them unaffordable for early supporters. Nonetheless, these issues have been solved by NFT providers by establishing whitelists or allowlists, giving special privileges and access to a newly minted nonfungible token. Before public minting begins, nonfungible token projects employ allowlists to restrict who can mint NFTs. For example, one can mint NFTs without being concerned …

As nonfungible tokens (NFTs) became more popular, bad actors who constantly try to exploit users within the space have become more active. Now, a new hack involving a feature on the NFT marketplace OpenSea threatens NFT holders through phishing sites. In an announcement, anti-theft project Harpie warned NFT users of a new hack involving gasless sales on the OpenSea platform. According to Harpie, hackers were able to steal millions in digital assets by exploiting the feature. When users want to conduct gasless sales within the OpenSea platform, they are required to approve a signature request with an unreadable message. With …

Blockchain security company CertiK has reminded the crypto community to stay alert over “ice phishing” scams — a unique type of phishing scam targeting Web3 users — first identified by Microsoft earlier this year. In a Dec. 20 analysis report, CertiK described ice phishing scams as an attack that tricks Web3 users into signing permissions which end up allowing a scammer to spend their tokens. This differs from traditional phishing attacks which attempt to access confidential information such as private keys or passwords, such as the fake websites set up which claimed to help FTX investors recover funds lost on …

Karl Sebastian Greenwood, the co-founder of the multi-billion dollar fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin has pleaded guilty to multiple charges brought forward by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and faces a maximum of 60 years in prison. The DOJ announced on Dec. 16 that Greenwood submitted a guilty plea in a Manhattan federal court to charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy with each charge carrying a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in jail. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Greenwood operated “one of the largest international fraud schemes ever perpetrated” and claimed he touted …

More than 350 fraudulent cryptocurrency tokens were created per day this year, defrauding millions of investors, according to blockchain risk monitoring firm Solidus Labs. From the start of the year to Dec. 1, 117,629 “scam tokens” were deployed according to Solidus’ 2022 “Rug Pull Report.” That’s a 41% increase from the nearly 83,400 scam tokens Solidus detected in 2021. It marks the largest year on record for fraudulent tokens since the firm began monitoring in Sep. 2020. The report cited the BNB Chain as harboring the greatest number of scam tokens, claiming 12% of all BEP-20 tokens are scams. The …

United States prosecutors have laid charges in two separate cases against nine people who founded or promoted a pair of cryptocurrency companies alleged to be Ponzi schemes that netted $8.4 million from investors. On Dec. 14 the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed the indictment, alleging the purported crypto mining and trading companies IcomTech and Forcount promised investors “guaranteed daily returns” that could double their investment in six months. In reality, prosecutors say both firms were using the money from later investors to pay earlier investors, while other funds were spent on promoting the companies …

A federal judge in California has dismissed a class action lawsuit against reality TV star Kim Kardashian, boxing champ Floyd Mayweather and the founders of EthereumMax, explaining that the submissions failed to meet the “heightened pleading standards” for fraud claims. The judge has, however, left room for the plaintiffs to refile the proposed class action lawsuit if certain provisions are amended. In the original Jan. 7 court filing submitted by Scott + Scott Attorneys At Law, the plaintiffs argued that Kardashian, Mayweather, and also former NBA superstar Paul Pierce didn’t disclose they were being paid to promote EthereumMax (EMAX). The …

It’s quite evident that bad actors have left no stone unturned as legendary metal band Metallica warned fans against crypto giveaway scams right before their highly anticipated launch of its new album, 72 Seasons. Cashing in on the buzz around Metallica’s new album launch and upcoming tour, scammers have started targeting metalheads through social media impersonation. Metallica, however, was quick to point out “the ugly side of social media,” asking fans to steer away from Metallica Crypto giveaways, stating: “Let’s be as clear as possible. [Metallica crypto giveaways] are scams.” Sad but true, Cointelegraph recently highlighted a rise in front-running …

Blockchain-based institutional capital marketplace Maple Finance announced on Dec 5 that it plans to cut all ties with Orthogonal Trading due to alleged misrepresentation of finances following the collapse of FTX. According to Maple Finance, it decided to cut all ties with the trading firm because it misrepresented its finances over the last four weeks and only recently admitted on Dec. 3 that it could not meet loan repayments. This means the company had been “operating while effectively insolvent,” making it impossible for it to continue operating without outside intervention. Maple Finance shared that it refuses to work with “bad …