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Pakistanis Lose Millions to Crypto Scam, Pakistan Issues Notice to Binance

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Pakistanis Lose Millions to Crypto Scam, Pakistan Issues Notice to Binance

Investors from Pakistan have become victims of a massive fraud using cryptocurrency. The country’s main law enforcement agency has issued a notice to crypto exchange Binance in relation to the scam which resulted in the loss of $100 million dollars for Pakistanis, media reports revealed.

Fraudsters Lure Pakistanis to Invest in Cryptocurrency Through Binance

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has uncovered a crypto investment scam that has allegedly cost Pakistani citizens some 17.7 billion rupees (around $100 million). Providing details on the case, Imran Riaz, director of the FIA cybercrime wing, said on Friday that the organizers used cryptocurrency. Quoted by local media, Riaz announced:

We launched a probe after receiving complaints regarding a fraud involving billions of rupees being committed using nine online applications.

The fraudsters employed mobile apps offering Pakistanis crypto investment opportunities and people sent between $100 and $80,000, or an average of $2,000 per person. Investors were urged to register at Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange, and transfer the money from the Binance wallet to accounts linked to the applications. On Dec. 20, authorities were contacted by many users who complained that around a dozen apps had suddenly stopped working.

“During the inquiry, it was found that the fraudulent accounts of different applications, namely, MCX, HFC, HTFOX, FXCOPY, OKMINI, BB001, AVG86C, BX66, 91fp, TASKTOK, were linked with Binance wallets,” officials detailed. Each had an average of 5,000 customers. The FIA has issued a notice to Hamza Khan, identified as Binance’s representative for Pakistan, and summoned him to appear in person on Jan. 10.

“The FIA Cyber Crime Sindh has issued order of attendance to Hamza Khan, General Manager/ Growth Analyst at Binance Pakistan (Crypto Currency Exchange) to explain his position on the linkage of fraudulent online investment mobile applications with Binance,” the FIA said, quoted by the Express Tribune and other news outlets. “A relevant questionnaire has also been sent to Binance Headquarters Cayman Islands and Binance US to explain the same,” the agency added in a press release.

Authorities to Keep Close Eye on Pakistani Crypto Transactions

The FIA claims that it has identified 26 wallet addresses at Binance used to transfer the money. “A letter has been written to Binance Holdings Limited to give the details of these blockchain wallet accounts as well as to debit block them,” the agency stated, adding it had also requested supporting documentation and information about the apps’ integration with the coin trading platform.

Noting that Binance is the “largest unregulated virtual currency exchange” where Pakistanis have invested millions of dollars, the FIA warns that in case of non-compliance, its cybercrime unit could recommend the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) impose financial penalties. It has now started to closely monitor transactions made by Pakistanis on the exchange.

Law enforcement officials are also reaching out to the popular messaging app Telegram as members of the scheme were added to various groups spreading signals on the price fluctuations of bitcoin. The FIA is serving legal notices to social media influencers who have been promoting the apps and taking steps to block all bank accounts linked to the scam.

In December, the Federal Investigation Agency froze over 1,000 bank accounts and cards used by crypto traders from Pakistan. The purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies is still prohibited in the country as per a circular issued by the SBP in April 2018. Despite the ban, a recent report revealed that Pakistanis have invested $20 Billion in crypto assets. Calls have been mounting for the government to regulate related transactions.

Do you expect Pakistan to further restrict crypto investments and trading after this fraud case? Let us know in the comments section below.

Finiko Fugitives Suspected of Moving 750 BTC From Crypto Pyramid’s Wallet

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Finiko Fugitives Suspected of Moving 750 BTC From Crypto Pyramid’s Wallet

A large amount of cryptocurrency has reportedly been withdrawn from a wallet previously controlled by the Finiko Ponzi scheme in Russia. The wallet’s unknown operators have transferred coins worth $48 million this month. The digital currency was split into smaller amounts and deposited to different addresses.

750 BTC Removed From Crypto Pyramid Finiko Wallet

A total of 750 BTC, worth around $48 million at the time of writing, has been withdrawn from one of the wallets used by crypto Ponzi scheme Finiko, Forklog reported. Youtube blogger Andrey Alistarov broke the news about the transfer, revealing that it was made in three separate transactions of 250 BTC each since the beginning of November.

The money was initially moved to a single address and subsequently sent to another wallet at the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, quoted data from blockchain analysis platform Crystal Blockchain shows. The crypto funds were then divided into smaller amounts and transferred to other addresses, the publication details.

Alistarov alleged that these transactions had been ordered by three of Finiko’s high-ranking members who are still at large. Zygmunt Zygmuntovich, Marat Sabirov, and Edward Sabirov, close associates of the pyramid’s founder Kirill Doronin, managed to leave the Russian Federation as the crypto investment scheme collapsed this summer, avoiding detention. In September, a high court in Tatarstan confirmed their international arrest warrants.

The Russian vlogger commented that the Finiko co-founders transferred the money in multiple transactions on purpose. “Why they haven’t been locked up until now is unclear, because they have long been marked as a scam. One thing is clear – money is being cashed out at the moment,” Andrey Alistarov added.

Authorities in Russia are currently working to establish all the facts in the case with Finiko, a phantom entity that lured hundreds of thousands of investors by advertising itself as an “automatic profit generation system” and promising extraordinarily high returns. Due to the large scale of the fraud, the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs took over the investigation.

In early October, Kirill Doronin, an Instagram influencer associated with other Ponzi schemes in the past, two of Finiko’s vice presidents, Ilgiz Shakirov and Dina Gabdullina, as well as Lilia Nurieva, who rose to the rank of a so-called “10th Star,” were transferred to the capital Moscow.

Finiko is arguably Russia’s largest financial pyramid scheme since the notorious MMM in the 1990s. While the officially registered losses to the scam have reached 1 billion rubles (close to $14 million), independent estimates suggest the total is more likely to exceed $4 billion.

According to a report by blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis, the Ponzi scheme received over $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in 800,000 separate deposits from investors between December 2019 and August 2021. Among its victims are citizens of Russia, Ukraine and other former-Soviet countries, several EU member states, and the U.S.

Do you think fugitive Finiko members are behind the transfer of 750 BTC from a wallet belonging to the crypto pyramid? Tell us in the comments section below.

Scammers Offer Free Bitcoin on Hacked Government Site in Russia as Crypto Fraud Surges

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Scammers Offer Free Bitcoin on Hacked Government Site in Russia as Crypto Fraud Surges

Unknown scammers have organized a fake bitcoin giveaway through a Russian government website they hacked. The news of the attack comes after a recent report revealed that damages from crypto-related fraud in Russia have reached $30 million in value in the first half of this year.

Regional Government Website in Russia Hacked by Scammers


The main website of the local administration in the Russian city of Ryazan, around 200 km southeast of Moscow, has been targeted by hackers twice in a single day, Rzn.info reported quoted by the crypto news outlet Forklog. The unidentified attackers published an ad offering cryptocurrency to those who download a special application.

The scammers initially promised to send 0.025 ВТС to every visitor who installed the app. They later changed the offer to a prize of $1,000 in bitcoin for each of five randomly chosen participants in what was advertised as the “Ryazani online lottery.” Both ads have already disappeared from the mayoral site but the local news outlet published a screenshot of one of the ads.

Scammers Offer Free Bitcoin on Hacked Government Site in Russia as Crypto Fraud Surges
Source: Rzn.info

Crypto Fraud in Russia Valued at $30 Million This Year


The volume of cryptocurrency-related fraud around the world has increased significantly in 2021. In the first half of the year, losses amounted to an estimated $1.5 billion, which is two to three times more than the total registered during the same period of last year, experts from the IT security company Zecurion told the Russian daily Izvestia.

According to the report published earlier this week, the Russian Federation accounts for 2% of the global amount – some $30 million, or almost 2.2 billion rubles. Analysts believe the main reasons for the spike stem from the growing exposure of users to digital assets as well as the desire to make quick profits in an expanding sector with limited regulations, amid volatility in the traditional financial markets. They also expect crypto fraud to continue to rise this year leading up to a 15% annual increase.

In July, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced it had identified 146 financial pyramid schemes in the first six months of the year. The number is 1.5 times higher in comparison with the same period of 2020. Fraudsters often lure people with weak financial literacy into investment scams linked to cryptocurrencies or crypto mining, the regulator said. The CBR attributed the surge to the increasing activity of “unfair market participants” and investment demand in Russia.

Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis revealed this week that crypto addresses based in Eastern Europe have sent $815 million of digital currency to scams in a single year. Over half of the money transferred to scam addresses from the region went to the Russia-based Ponzi scheme Finiko. The pyramid was targeting crypto holders in Russian-speaking populations in the former Soviet space with promises of 30% monthly returns before it collapsed in July.

Do you agree with experts’ expectations that crypto-related fraud will continue to increase this year? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Eastern Europe Sends Over $800 Million in Crypto to Scams in Single Year, Report Reveals

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Eastern Europe Sends Over $800 Million of Crypto to Scams in Single Year, Report Reveals

Of all funds sent to illicit cryptocurrency addresses from Eastern Europe, scams attract the greatest amount, according to a new report. In the past year alone, crypto addresses based in the region have sent the fraudulent schemes a staggering $815 million in crypto.

Eastern Europe Leads by Volume of Illicit Crypto Transactions

Among the world’s regions with a total crypto transaction volume of at least $400 million, Eastern Europe is the only one where illicit activity exceeds 0.5% of the total value sent and received, Chainalysis notes in a preview of its 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency report. In a blog post published Wednesday, the blockchain forensics company revealed:

Between June 2020 and July 2021, Eastern Europe-based addresses sent $815 million to scams, second only to Western Europe.

Crypto addresses in East European countries have the second-highest rate of exposure to illicit addresses, with Africa topping the chart and Latin America ranking third, the excerpt details. However, Eastern Europe has a much larger overall cryptocurrency economy than either of the other regions in the top three.

Eastern Europe Sends Over $800 Million in Crypto to Scams in Single Year, Report Reveals
Source: Chainalysis

Researchers also remark that Eastern Europe accounts for the most web traffic to scam websites during the studied period. Among all nations, Ukraine is the marked leader with more than twice the number of web visits registered in the United States which is a distant second. The total number of monthly East European visitors to crypto scam sites peaked at 12.5 million in January.

Eastern Europe Sends Over $800 Million in Crypto to Scams in Single Year, Report Reveals
Source: Chainalysis

While Eastern Europe sends more digital currency than other regions to darknet markets such as Hydra Market, which targets the Russian-speaking world, scams receive the largest share of East European crypto funds sent to illicit addresses, Chainalysis concludes. “We can assume that most of this activity represents victims sending money to scammers,” point out the authors of the report.

Finiko Ponzi Scheme Collects Over $1.5 Billion Worth of Bitcoin in 2 Years

Chainalysis further notes that over half of the value sent to scam addresses from Eastern Europe went to one particular scam based in the Russian Federation — Finiko. The Ponzi scheme, which enticed crypto investors promising monthly returns of up to 30%, collapsed in July after receiving more than $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin (BTC) since December 2019, mostly from Russian and Ukrainian crypto holders.

Eastern Europe Sends Over $800 Million in Crypto to Scams in Single Year, Report Reveals
Source: Chainalysis

According to Russian media, Finiko has been led by Kirill Doronin, an Instagram influencer also linked to other Ponzi schemes. With incomes falling amid economic difficulties worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, the scam targeted people who needed extra money. Many Russians fell for the financial pyramid scheme, just like in the “wild 1990s.”

Meanwhile, the officially estimated damages in the Finiko case have reached 250 million rubles (over $3.4 million), Forklog reported. The crypto news outlet quoted the latest version of the indictment against the pyramid’s founder in the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Independent experts claim the total losses exceed $4 billion. So far, 80 individuals have been recognized as victims of the scam, although the number of depositors is believed to be at least 850,000.

What are your thoughts on the findings in the Chainalysis report? Let us know in the comments section below.

Will the Real Polygon Please Stand Up — Spammers Wrongly Post Coin Drops on Video Game-Related Feed

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In a strange twist of fate, two companies named Polygon are the source of a storm of confusion on Twitter as a video game community gets a unique introduction to Polygon’s blockchain technology.

Crypto Scammers Hit Game-Related Feed

Polygon, the rebranded layer 2 blockchain solution (previously Matic Network), has been mixed up with another identically named organization. This case of mistaken identity has caused some perplexing activity on Twitter as spammers and scammers highlight a “coin drop” to an online American video gaming website named Polygon that is entirely unrelated to the blockchain network.

In several posts published by the video game organization’s Twitter feed, which operates under the handle @Polygon, spam accounts with little to no history and activity mentioned coin drops for Polygon and Matic. Twitter users who scrolled past the normal responses to the “Might Be Offensive” content were quickly inundated with crudely written tweets that tagged @POLYGON_BONUS and @MATICGIFT.

This has been a common attack vector for enterprising scammers seeking to have crypto users unwittingly send their coins to a scammer’s wallet. Scammers will often explain that users will be eligible for a coin drop or other promotion designed to give them more coins than they sent in return for sending a few coins, only to steal the coins and disappear. Thanks to poor spelling, grammar, and obvious tells like an account’s history, these scams are relatively easy to spot.

Over the years, many of these scams have routinely been perpetrated, especially by accounts posing as recently deceased crypto evangelist John McAfee. However, this mistake also reflects common errors made by algorithms attempting to automate certain behaviors. A strong example is headline screening algorithms that are used to make financial trading decisions. They sometimes pick up on errant tweets and headlines that cause spikes in unrelated financial instruments, only to later realize a case of mistaken identity.

In Polygon’s (the blockchain solution) case, this example of mistaken identity probably did more help than harm by exposing the video game site’s users to cryptocurrency and its layer 2 scaling solution, or at the very least, the tactics of shady spammers.

What do you think of the Polygon mistaken identity Twitter storm? Let us know in the comments section below.