Tag Archives: Security & Ransomware

Two 37-year-old Estonian citizens named Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin have been arrested after potentially defrauding hundreds of thousands of people in an alleged crypto scheme. The money lost at the time of writing is believed to exceed $575 million. Two Estonian Men Arrested for Crypto Fraud The scheme involved several false rental contracts, along with a fake bank and a crypto mining facility. The pair tricked customers into engaging in equipment rental contracts...

Randall Crater – the founder of defunct crypto business My Big Coin – was sentenced to eight years in prison for defrauding both customers and investors out of millions of dollars. Randall Crater Is Heading to Prison U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston oversaw the case involving Crater and his now failed company. Initially, prosecutors sought as many as 13 years in jail for the former crypto executive. The goal was to make an example of him and make any other...

A woman living in New York City is being accused of using crypto to fund a terrorist organization in Syria. 43-year-old Victoria Jacobs – who also operates under the alias Bakhrom Talipov – is now being charged with terrorism herself, along with money laundering and various other crimes. Victoria Jacobs Is in Big Trouble Jacobs is believed to have given the money to a group called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a foreign terrorist organization currently designated as such by the...

Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis says in a new report that crypto crime fighting has been effective to some degree. While the amount of crime hasn’t necessarily fallen in recent years, the fight against it has limited criminals to certain platforms when cashing out, transferring their stolen funds into fiat, or engaging in illicit transactions. New Chainalysis Report Says Criminals Don’t Have That Many Enterprises In its report, Chainalysis says most criminals are...

Two women in Grand Traverse County in Michigan were scammed out of more than $50K in crypto funds after falling victim to a digital currency fraud scheme. The news came by way of a statement given by Sheriff Lt. Brandon Brinks. Lt. Brinks on Crypto Scams In the statement, Brinks said crypto scams are always difficult to narrow down and track given that they’re always changing, and fraudsters are always altering their methods of obtaining digital asset funds. He said:...

North Korea has long done anything and everything it could to get its hands on crypto. There’s no doubt about that. At this stage, it’s obvious the nation is trying to garner digital assets so it can fund its ongoing nuclear program. However, until now, we’ve always been afraid of Lazarus, as this is the main state-funded hacking organization trying to garner illicit crypto through stealing, cyberattacks, and thievery. North Korea Has a New Group Stealing Crypto It now...

Federal officials have recovered close to $3 million in stolen crypto funds. The money was taken through a fraud scheme that resulted in more than 150 bitcoin units traveling into criminal hands. Federal Officials Have Gotten Stolen BTC Back The scheme is alleged to have begun three years ago in 2020. Individuals overseeing the scam had set up a call center that they inherently used to target U.S. traders and investors. These individuals would call them up and pretend to...

Several call centers throughout Europe that were being used to conduct crypto fraud and other illicit scams have been shut down by law enforcement agencies. Raids began in June of last year and have continued up until now. Call Centers Were Engaged in Crypto Fraud Police agencies throughout the regions of Cyprus, Bulgaria, Germany, and Serbia have discovered various call centers being used to trick investors into placing their money into various crypto fraud schemes,...

A federal judge in the region of San Diego, California has ordered the leader of a crypto fraud scheme to pay as much as $17 million in restitution fees to more than 800 traders and investors that allegedly fell victim to his methods. Fraud Promoter Will Also Spend Time in Prison The scam was known as Bit Connect, and it will likely go down as one of the biggest crypto-based Ponzi schemes in history. Many investors who put their money into the platform were ultimately...

Illicit cryptocurrency transactions increased tenfold in 2022, marking the highest total figure yet in the history of crypto. In what was arguably the worst year for bitcoin and its crypto cousins to date, close to $20 billion in illicit crypto was transferred to suspicious addresses. Illicit Crypto Activity Reached a Pinnacle Last Year This beats the previous record set in 2021, which was $18 billion. The new number outdoes the previous one by roughly $2 billion. Kim...