Crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc. has seen a major development in the ongoing investigation surrounding a $400 million security breach. As announced by CEO Brian Armstrong, the Indian Police have arrested a former agent involved in the Coinbase hack. Notably, the arrest follows the Coinbase data breach earlier this year, in which hackers bribed Coinbase’s
The post Brian Armstrong Praises Indian Police for Arresting Ex-Agent in $400M Coinbase Hack appeared first on CoinGape.
]]>Dubai Police Partners With Cardano Foundation to Prevent Crime Watcher Guru
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Dubai Police Will Use Cardano to Share Bullet Scans in Blockchain Policing Project CCN.com
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On Wednesday, January 31, British law enforcement authorities revealed the discovery of Bitcoin valued at $1.7 billion, associated with a woman facing allegations of laundering funds from a $6 billion investment fraud in China.
UK Citizen Denies Money Laundering Allegations
Jian Wen, a 42-year-old UK citizen, is vehemently denying accusations that she played a role in laundering substantial sums of money amassed by Zhimin Qian, a fugitive wanted in China for orchestrating a fraudulent scheme that victimized around 130,000 investors. The current whereabouts of Zhimin, also known as Yadi Zhang, remain unknown.
Details surrounding the case emerged during a 2018 police raid at their rented London manor house, where investigators discovered laptops, pen drives, and notebooks containing saved passwords and crypto wallets with Bitcoin holdings valued at hundreds of millions of dollars each, as stated by the prosecuting lawyer.
Gillian Jones, the lawyer representing the prosecution, informed the jury that during the raid, Yadi Zhang was present at the property but managed to flee the UK afterward.
The investigation was triggered by Jian’s unsuccessful attempts to purchase two London houses, with a combined value of approximately $45 million. Her inability to provide sufficient proof of the source of funds to a lawyer involved in the transactions led to the failed property acquisitions.
Prosecutors allege that Jian, in 2017, asserted to the lawyer that Zhimin had mined and “gifted the Bitcoins” to her as a “love present.” The purchased house was their “first home,” as per Jian’s statements. The prosecution further claims that Jian had researched online methods to use Bitcoin for property transactions in the UK and explored avenues for selling Bitcoin without requiring proof of funds.
As the case unfolds, Jian Wen faces legal scrutiny and maintains her denial of any involvement in the money laundering allegations linked to the international fraud scheme.
Dubai-Based Investment Adviser Offered Bitcoin Transaction Channel
The ongoing investigation also reveals that in 2019, a Dubai-based investment adviser presented Jian Wen with an alternative method for locally selling Bitcoin for cash.
In a statement provided to the police in 2019, Jian asserted that she lived with Zhimin as a caretaker and translator, and in return, she received a gift of 3,000 Bitcoins. Jian stated that back then she had limited understanding of Bitcoin and believed it to be the source of Zhimin’s wealth.
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.
[SPONSORED CONTENT] Mohammad AlShamsi of the Dubai Police talks about how blockchain is revolutionizing … CoinDesk
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Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Entertainment news
- An eight-episode limited series about the FTX implosion from Joe and Anthony Russo’s production company, AGBO, has been set up at Amazon, Variety reported. Amazon is hoping to put the show into production in spring 2023.
Legal news
- Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut is under police investigation in Singapore for alleged fraud and cheating offenses. Hodlnaut and its directors are suspected of making “false representations relating to the company’s exposure to a certain digital token,” according to a police statement.
- The company contracted to recover FTX assets said it has managed to recover more than $740 million, per the November 16 figures, Fox Business reported. The digital asset financial services company BitGo, which was hired when FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, estimated that the amount of recovered and secured assets has likely risen above $1 billion since then.
DeFi news
- Ardana, a decentralized ecosystem that had been working on a Cardano (ADA) stablecoin, has halted development because of funding and project timeline uncertainty. “Our code will remain open source for builders to continue our work going forward as they wish,” its tweet said and added that the “remaining funds and treasury balances etc will be held by Ardana Labs until another competent dev team in the community comes forward to continue our work.”
Exchange news
- Bybit has established a $100 million fund to support institutional clients, it confirmed on Twitter. The exchange will offer up to $10 million to existing and new market makers on its platform, as well as dedicated account managers.
- CrossTower, which is currently bidding for the assets of Voyager Digital, is looking to acquire firms with a “good set of customers” and a “good balance sheet”. Per Bloomberg, CEO Kapil Rathi said that the exchange is “openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective.”
NFT news
- The first non-fungible token (NFT) album to be nominated for a Grammy is with DAORecords on the NEAR blockchain, said an announcement by the Near Foundation. ‘Rhythm and Soul’ is a Jazz album produced by Arturo Sandoval in collaboration with MetaJAX, and it has been nominated for best Latin Jazz Album Grammy 2023.
- The prize pool for crypto exchange OKX’s NFT Football Cup has more than doubled since the event’s launch on November 8, said a press release. This brings the total prize pool for the NFT Football Cup above $2 million, and the total prize pool for the broader OKX Football Festival to more than $4 million.
Investment news
- Overnight Finance, the asset management protocol offering passive yield products primarily for conservative stablecoin investors, has been awarded a 300,000 Optimism token grant (the approximate equivalent value of $300,000). An announcement said that the grant allocation will be utilized to develop a financial primitive that covers broad applications, from treasury management to liquidity mining. The Optimism Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing the Optimism Collective, which scales Ethereum (ETH) technology.
- India’s wellness platform Growfitter has partnered with NEAR India, NEAR Foundation’s regional hub, to expand its operations globally. According to the press release, Growfitter’s integration into the NEAR blockchain is a significant step forward in the company’s commitment to expanding its presence in Vietnam, the Philippines, Dubai, and Singapore.
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The sum of money lost in reported incidents of crypto fraud so far has increased by 30% compared to last year’s figures
The first nine months have seen a surge in crypto fraud incidents in the UK according to a Bloomberg report. More than £146 million ($201 million) was lost to crypto fraud between January and October with the majority of the victims being young people. The City of London Police revealed that a total of 7,118 reports of cryptocurrency-related fraud had been brought forward.
Addressing the matter, the Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Craig Mullish noted that the rising number of crypto fraud cases was not entirely unexpected.
“Reports of cryptocurrency fraud have increased significantly over the past few years. Being online more means criminals have a greater opportunity to approach unsuspecting victims with fraudulent investment opportunities.”
The local police authority cautioned against rushing into opportunities endorsed by celebrities as most fraudsters create fake endorsements to beguile unsuspecting victims. The warning is backed by statistics as nearly four-fifths of the submitted complaints on fake endorsements in the UK revolve around cryptocurrency.
More than 50% of the victims of crypto fraud are aged between 18 and 45. This is not surprising considering the younger population makes up the majority of people investing in cryptocurrency.
A July poll run by the market research and insight agency Opinium established that half of Britons between 18 and 29 considered cryptocurrencies as their first investment. Specifically, the survey findings showed that young Britons highly considered Bitcoin and Dogecoin as the best cryptocurrencies to invest in at the time.
Around the same time, the retail and commercial bank NatWest urged its users to be aware of fraud and scam threats in the crypto industry. David Lindberg, the bank’s chief executive, particularly warned about fake cryptocurrency platforms created to steal from people who invest unknowingly. Lindberg additionally labelled the UK crypto market as a hotbed for crypto scammers.
“Fraud and scams are an industry. They’re intelligent, and they move fast, and it’s heartbreaking to see how they try to destroy lives,” he said at the time.
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. Although the majority of crypto transactions are legitimate, many are also fraudulent. Criminals take advantage of the anonymous and international nature of digital currencies. These crimes often include Money Laundering, Terrorism, Tax Fraud, and Drug Trafficking.
Security continues to remain a heavily debated topic in the crypto space. Recently, security agencies of the world have had to increase their efforts in tracking down cryptocurrency scams. The UK has not been left out of this as British agencies have been clamping down on these illegal activities.
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The UK police have recently been active in seizing cryptocurrencies. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Graham McNulty said some criminals have moved “to more sophisticated methods” to launder money, such as using cryptocurrencies.
UK Police Seize Ethereum In USB Stick
The UK police have recently seized crypto worth $22.25 million from operators of an international cryptocurrency scam. This includes Ethereum worth $9.5 million found in a USB stick. The police announced on their website, “A sum of $22.25 million (equivalent to just over £16 million) was seized by specialist officers from Greater Manchester Police’s Economic Crime Unit after intelligence led to the discovery of USB sticks containing huge amounts of Ethereum”
The Victims of this scam are based in the UK, United States, Europe, China, Australia, and Hong Kong. They deposited money into what they thought was an online saving and trading service using Binance Smart Chain, which stores and records transactions made in crypto-currency, confirming their movement and value. “Crypto-currency saving and trading services are becoming increasingly popular, with projects offering incentives to people to invest significant amounts of money, offering tokens that can then be sold for a profit” the Greater Manchester Police stated.
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The scammers waited until a significant amount of money had been deposited, before shutting down their website. They then transferred the funds into their accounts, hoping to disappear without a trace. Unfortunately for them, specialist officers received intelligence that those running the scheme had been in Manchester for a limited time. They tracked the criminals down and recovered the stolen Ethereum. The police are now attempting to contact victims of this scam and return their funds. The scammers: a 23-year-old male and a 25-year-old female, have since been released under investigation.
ETH price maintains momentum over $3,000 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
According to the police, they found a further $12.7million a few days later after locating a Cryptograph safety deposit box. They also found the code to access it. “The sum totaled 90% of the cryptocurrency stolen, and work has now begun on re-uniting it with the rightful owners, some of whom are still unknown and located across the world”.
Other Recent Crypto Scam Investigations
In July, UK detectives announce that they confiscated £180 million in crypto as part of a money-laundering investigation. The police did not specify how they seized the crypto or what kind of coins they were. The suspect was a 39-year-old woman arrested on 24 June who was later released on bail.
Before this incident, the Metropolitan police announced one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency seizures as of then. The seizure, worth £114million, was carried out by detectives from the Met’s Economic Crime Command on the back of intelligence received about the transfer of criminal assets.
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In a press release published on July 13, Detective Constable Joe Ryan said: “Less than a month ago we successfully seized £114million in cryptocurrency. Our investigation since then has been complex and wide-ranging. We have worked hard to trace this money and identify the criminality it may be linked to. Today’s seizure is another significant landmark in this investigation which will continue for months to come as we hone in on those at the center of this suspected money laundering operation.”
Featured image from CNBC, chart from TradingView.com
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