Tag: Scam

South Korea Busts $230M Crypto Scam: 215 Arrested, 15,000 Victims

South Korea busted a huge $230M crypto scam, with over 15,000 victims suffered by their scam, most of the them were old people. This scheme was apparently run by a Youtuber with over 620K subs. Cops arrested him including 215 helpers, and tracked over 1400 accounts and seized $1.9M in Bitcoin. The mastermind for this was caught in Australia and the hunt for fund is still on.

South Koreans have just cracked down a massive organization that had managed to defraud over 15K investors including vulnerable older citizens , out of 325 billion won. According to a report by Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency’s Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit, they have arrested 215 people associated with the scam. Among them 12 were considered higher level organizers of the plan. Every one of the suspects now face charges under South Korea’s Aggravated Punishment Act for Specific Economic Crimes.

The scam was mostly successful because of the influence of a youtuber who goes by the name “Mr. A”, he is the alleged ring-leader of this scam. He used his influence to lure in  investors with claims of quick riches, encouraging some to even sell their homes and take out loans to buy crypto assets that would supposedly yield “20 times the principal.” 

The scam was active from December 2021 to March 2023, and offered 28 different types of cryptocurrency tokens, six of which were self-created and listed on overseas exchanges to attract buyers. The scam was cruel on so many levels, victim’s personal info were also misused, many of them lost their life’s savings in this scheme. The alleged leader Mr.A ran away from South Korea and was eventually arrested in Australia.

Police reported that they found across 1444 bank accounts and seized 22 bitcoins which is worth $1.9 million, and requested court approval to confiscate approximately $34 million linked to the scam. They are now working on to get victims money returned to them and prevent further financial crimes.

AI-Powered Phishing Scams Take Aim at Crypto Users

Summary

Kaspersky’s AI Research Center says that cybercriminals are using Large Language Models (LLMs) to pump out tons of phishing and scam content. Their goal is simply to produce fake websites, especially to steal from crypto investors and wallet users. But there’s a trick that helps us differ these sites from actual legit ones.

Experts from Kaspersky’s AI Research Center claims to have discovered an increase in the use of Large Language Models used by cybercriminals, in order to scam people using large-scale scam and phishing attacks. They say these websites are created in bulks and every single one of them is specifically designed to lure the investors into their scam. But there’s a kick: every such website contains a distinguishable artifacts such as AI-specific phrases which makes them a bit easier to avoid. Reportedly, most of these phishing websites target users of cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets.

A big giveaway of such AI created sites is using phrases such as “As an AI language model…” and refusal to do certain tasks like, acting like a search engine or logging into sites, which are showing up on fake crypto sites targeting KuCoin, Gemini, and Exodus users. Another major giveaway is using phrases like “While I can’t do exactly what you want, I can try something similar,” this feels really obvious machine-made style of talk. According to Vladislav Tushkanov, threat actors can now pump out lots of these scam pages quickly with AI, filling entire sites, text, and even hidden tags with these tells.

But lately, cybercriminals have started to throw in non-standard symbols to dodge detection. Tushkanov further said that these AI powered scams are evolving rapidly, there are even records of AI writing malware scripts on their own, one way to defend is to catch AI made mistakes but even so, advanced security tools are must use. To stay safe, always double check links, type site addresses manually and only use modern security software.

Austria Sentences Five in Landmark $21.6M Crypto Scam Trial

Summary

Five individuals were sentenced to prison for their roles in a Ponzi-like scheme. This incident occured in Austria, where the sentenced individuals involved themselves in the EXW-Token scam that defrauded over 40,000 investors out of €20 million ($21.6 million).

Landmark Crypto Fraud Trial Ends in Sentencing

Austria’s largest crypto fraud case to date, took a year-long trial and 60 days of hearings. The Klagenfurt Regional Court sentenced five individuals involved in the EXW-token scam. The individuals were found guilty of running a Ponzi-like scheme, persuading investors with promises of daily returns through fraudulent ventures,including the EXW Wallet and fictitious investments in real estate and rental cars.This fraudulent scheme had already collapsed in 2020 but briefly managed to resurface under the name Exchange World.

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Lavish Spending Funded by Fraud

Court recordings reveal that the defendants were using the stolen funds to facilitate their lavish lifestyles; luxury cars, private jets and mansions. Out of all the stolen goods some of the stolen goods was allegedly transfered from Dubai to Austria.Two of the defendants received five-year sentences, with others handed 30-month and 18-month suspended sentences. EXW Wallet co-founders Benjamin Herzog and Pirmin Troger had already pleaded guilty and received five-year sentences.

A Rising Global Threat

The EXW-Token case highlights a troubling increase in crypto scams globally. France recently began its own $30 million crypto fraud trial, while the U.S. sentenced a Ponzi promoter to prison. With crypto-related frauds surging, authorities worldwide are cracking down to protect investors and maintain trust in the cryptocurrency market.

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