After a severe crypto fraud in which a 41-year-old man lost around €10,000, two suspects have now been identified. They are a 31-year-old Albanian and a 43-year-old Kosovar. They will be charged with aggravated fraud.
German and US authorities, supported by Europol, seized Bitcoins worth around $46 million In a coordinated international takedown of ChipMixer, a darknet cryptocurrency “mixing” service responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2017. The service laundered the money from illicit activities, including ransomware, darknet markets, fraud, cryptocurrency heists, and other hacking schemes.
An Ontario man says he is "devastated" after investing his entire life savings in an investment scam he became involved in through a YouTube video he saw."I'm devastated. It ruined me, and my savings are gone," said Stephen Carr of Meaford, Ontario. Online investment fraud continues to be a significant problem in Canada, and Carr is one of many victims.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently filed several lawsuits against crypto companies for allegedly selling equity-like products, i.e., unregistered securities. The most high-profile case is the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple, expected to be settled by the end of March 2023 after years of litigation.
Money laundering is an enormous problem for societies and economies. More than two trillion US dollars are laundered every year. Economic fraud has increased by more than 37% in high-growth markets in the last twelve months. Munich-based fintech Hawk AI, which supports banks and financial service providers in the fight against financial crime, is raising €17 million in a new Series B financing.
Malware hiding behind a sponsored ad link on Google siphoned thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies and NFTs from an influencer's wallet. The NFT influencer with the Twitter handle "NFT God" claims to have lost a "life-changing amount" of his net worth in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies after accidentally downloading malware he found via a search result from a Google ad.
The Interpol scam caused damage in Germany and Austria. The fact that suspected backers were caught in India is not only thanks to the police. Threatening-sounding calls caused unrest throughout Germany last year: "Good afternoon, this is Interpol," is heard on the taped announcement in English, which criminals played to their victims. "Your identity is being misused for fraudulent purposes. For more information, please press one." Those who followed the prompt thus set in motion a fraud machine.
Amid the official announcement that the Bulgarian crypto lender is under investigation, Nexo insists that it has followed AML and KYC rules. Crypto lender Nexo has become the subject of a large-scale investigation in Bulgaria as prosecutors probe possible money laundering, tax violations, computer fraud, and other crimes.
The largest U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase has accepted a multi-million dollar fine for allegedly being too lax in its anti-money laundering precautions in New York State. The company will pay a total of $100 million (€94 million) as part of a settlement, the New York financial regulator DFS announced yesterday. The authority added a penalty of $50 million to Coinbase. The group will invest a further $50 million in improving its control mechanisms.