Tag Archives: crypto scams

On February 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce with illegally promoting the EMAX token on his social media accounts. The EMAX token was offered and sold by EthereumMax. According to the complaint, Pierce has agreed to pay a penalty of $1,115,000, plus approximately $240,000 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, without admitting or denying guilt, to avoid greater sanctions from regulators. He is also prohibited from...

Gilbert Armenta – the former boyfriend of Ruja Ignatova (more famous as the “Cryptoqueen”) – will reportedly spend five years in jail for participating in the fraudulent cryptocurrency project OneCoin. The Bulgarian-born Ignatova – the Founder of the infamous Ponzi scheme – sits on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list. She was last seen in 2017 in Greece, while some sources hinted she could have been killed. Armenta Gets Five Years, Instead of Seven According to a Bloomberg...

Wybo Wiersma – a 40-year-old Dutchman who studied at Oxford’s St Cross College – will serve a 54-month prison sentence for stealing £2,156,000 (more than $2.6 million) using a cryptocurrency scheme. UK detectives linked the scam to the man who used the pseudonym Norbert van den Berg in his malicious website and university coursework. ‘Greed and Dishonesty’ Behind the Scam Judge Michael Gledhill KC ordered Wiersma to spend four and a half years in prison for his offense. The...

According to an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Observer, more than 168 shell companies in the United Kingdom are suspected of operating fraudulent crypto or foreign exchange trading schemes, around half of which are potentially linked to pig-butchering scams. In fact, these organized crime groups were found to be using the UK as a “virtual base” for their operations while exploiting lax regulations to conduct fraud on an industrial scale, the...

Randall Crater – the Founder of the fraudulent cryptocurrency business “My Big Coin” – will spend 100 months in jail.  Federal prosecutors previously insisted his punishment should have been 13 years. Crater Defrauded Investors With Over $7.5 Million U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston ruled that Crater should stay in prison for more than eight years for running a cryptocurrency scam called “My Big Coin” between 2014 and 2017. The wrongdoer stole $7.5 million from...

Stephen Carr – a resident of Meaford, Ontario – said he lost his entire life savings of nearly $500,000 after being conned into a cryptocurrency scheme on YouTube. Scammers have used the video-sharing website multiple times to lure victims. Some have even uploaded fake recordings of famous people, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and Kanye West, who appear to promote dubious cryptocurrency investments. ‘I’m Devastated’ In a recent interview, Carr said he got...

The popular on-chain sleuth ZachXBT recently called out two growing Twitter accounts for perpetrating multiple NFT-related scams over the past month.  The analyst explained the timeline of events on Friday, including their sudden rise to prominence and the rug pulls they’ve managed to pull off.  Calling Out the Scammers As outlined in the analyst’s Twitter thread on Friday, Twitter handles @radako and @Fitz_lol suddenly began using NFT profile pictures and tweeting about NFTs...

Scammers have created a fake FTX token, dubbed FTX 2.0, to impersonate the now-bankrupt crypto exchange less than 24 hours after the company’s new CEO announced that the platform could be revived. According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the bad actors sent the tokens to the FTX exchange, pretending to add liquidity before airdropping them to other crypto exchanges. The aim is to lure users into clicking fraudulent links that drain or burn their account balances....

Illegal financial transactions involving cryptocurrencies in 2022 have reportedly surged for a second consecutive year, tapping an all-time high of $20.1 billion.  The previous record was in 2021, when digital assets facilitated criminal proceedings worth $18 billion. Going Up Amid the Bear Market Apart from the significant market decline, the numerous bankruptcies, and scandals, 2022 will be remembered as a flourishing year for illicit cryptocurrency transactions. According...

On November 13, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) announced that it had successfully cracked down on a criminal network engaged in online scams through call centers. The network was spread all around Europe. According to Europol, the operation was carried out on January 11, 2023, following an investigation that began in June 2022 at the request of the German authorities. In conjunction with the national authorities of the other countries,...