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Kim Kardashian sued for promoting alleged crypto scam

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Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are being sued for promoting the alleged crypto scam regarding the EthereumMax token. The promotion of the said altcoin by the reality star and the boxing legend to their millions of social media followers misled investors.

The lawsuit that was filed on 7 January 2022 in Los Angeles federal court, asserts the celebrities trumpeted tokens sold by EthereumMax (EMAX) only to get its price to rise and to earn themselves a profit “at the expense of their followers and investors.”

The lawsuit stated,

“The company’s executives, collaborating with several celebrity promoters … made false or misleading statements about EthereumMax through social media advertisements and other promotional activities.”

Floyd Mayweather and Kim Kardashian served

A class-action lawsuit was filed last Friday in the U.S District Court for the Central District of California accuses EthereumMax (naming the company specifically) and its celebrity promoters of working together to artificially hike the price of the token.

The reality star, Kim Kardashian, created a flutter on her Instagram post, in 2021, promoting the EMAX token. She wrote, “Are you guys into crypto???? This is not a financial advice but sharing what my friends just told me about the Ethereum Max token!” She mentioned a hashtag #ad in the post, implying that she was paid to promote it.

In the meantime, the boxing legend, Floyd Mayweather Jr. promoted the token in his boxing match with YouTube star Logan Paul. EMAX was accepted as a mode of payment for the tickets to the event; the lawsuit claims that this move had boosted the trading volume of the asset. Mayweather had also promoted the token at a huge Bitcoin conference in Miami, but whether he was paid to do so wasn’t disclosed by the boxing legend, according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit,

“EthereumMax’s entire business model relies on using constant marketing and promotional activities, often from “trusted” celebrities, to dupe potential investors into trusting the financial opportunities available with EMAX tokens.”

Celebrity endorsements can be as glamorous as it seems, but it is always a safer way to play the game by having done one’s own research over investments.

This is how crypto scammers are duping Indian public

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Fraudsters are increasingly exploiting Indian crypto investors, taking advantage of the craze for the digital asset industry despite regulatory uncertainty. As per sources, in March 2021, Kapil Singh, a 24-year-old employee at a private firm in the country’s capital Delhi, decided to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum, through a US-based trading firm that seemed legitimate. Months later, Singh found out the site was fake.

Singh is among several people to have been fallen victims of scammers, who are using fake cryptocurrency or apps to cheat people. As per data from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, more than 50 complaints were registered in the capital from January to June in 2021. Maharashtra recorded the highest with 72 cases lodged. Delhi reported the second-highest complaints of crypto scams. That being said, the unofficial number might be higher.

According to Delhi Police, several of these gangs operating fake apps, phishing websites, or call centers claiming to deal in the crypto market have been busted over the last year. In the last 12 months, Deputy Commissioner of Police [DCP] KPS Malhotra said, more than 20 individuals have been arrested in three cases and $4 million in assets was frozen by the CyPad team in Delhi. The duped money is estimated to be roughly $26 million.

How to avoid falling for such crypto scams?

Similar to the stock market, the crypto market has exchanges or brokers that act as facilitators. These trading platforms often charge a fee or commission for each transaction. Some even offer rewards for hitting a milestone, others provide a joining bonus. Police said a majority of fraudsters use the rewards scheme along with the promise of high returns to lure investors. They create fake apps and invite people using social media bulk messaging and marketing to invest.

In a note of caution, DCP Malhotra said,

“We have advised the public to invest wisely. Check websites and accounts and do their research. Most of the accused present rosy pictures and schemes that aren’t valid. One must check for valid schemes and not invest money to get instant returns. There are platforms or exchanges to invest in cryptocurrencies that have authentic websites. We also have a helpline to prevent such scams.”

Kerala police nab 4 over 100 crore INR crypto scam

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Key Takeaway

  • Law enforcement from Kerala, India went on to bust a money-laundering racket that involved cryptocurrnecy.
  • A total of four people were arrested after they raised about 100 crore Indian rupees by duping people.

Just as the value of crypto surged, scammy projects surrounding it also took off. Kerala police recently confronted something similar and uprooted the entire crypto project.

Hackers haven’t spared anyone. Now that cryptocurrencies were gaining traction in India, perpetrators who intend to pocket some easy money were onto innocent investors. Law enforcement wasn’t far behind as they have been quick in tracking down those behind these scammy projects.

Four men in Kerala, a state in India were arrested by the police for carrying out a racket that involved crores of Indian rupees.

Kerala police take down massive crypto racket

With the formation of a fake company, Long Rich Technology based in Bengaluru, Karanataka, a team raised about 100 crore in Indian rupees from their clients. The alleged scammers deceitfully professed 2 to 8% returns per day in cryptocurrency to their customers. This certainly lured in a large amount of investors who poured in their funds into the scammy project.

The Kerala police managed to arrest, Muhammed Riyas, C Shafeeque, Munavvarali as well as Muhammed Shafeeque. About 40 crore INR and 32 crore INR was transacted through two of the detained members separately.

However, the police revealed that the man behind the scam, Nishad, was still on the run. The largest amount was reportedly transferred into the account of Nishad.

While the police is still on the look out for Nishad, it was noted that he was previously arrested but managed to secure bail. Soon after garnering bail, he decided to bolt. The police succeeded in freezing his bank account where they secured 34 crore INR.

P P Sadanandan, the secior police officer of Kannur city revealed that Nishad could be hiding in the Middle-East.

The remarkable returns of the crypto market has been a huge selling point. However, the lack of education regarding the industry could hamper its growth while bringing in immense loss to many.

BitConnect promoters face a lawsuit by SEC following a $2 billion crypto scam

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The Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] of the United States has reportedly hit five people part of the BitConnect Ponzi scheme with a lawsuit.

The crypto-verse isn’t new to scams and hacks. However, the surge in the price of all the assets paved the way to more scammy projects that further led to several losing out on investments. While officials had shot down a crypto Ponzi scheme, BitConnect back in 2018, news pertaining to the platform has once again started to surface.

BitConnect makes headlines, once again

A platform started out in 2016 and urged customers to loan their cryptocurrency to garner massive returns. While BitConnect pocketed significant gains of about $2 billion, the FBI intervened in 2019 and looked for the victims of this scam. As this case persists, the SEC went on to file a lawsuit against five people, namely, Trevon Brown, Craig Grant, Ryan Maasen, and Michael Noble for promoting the Ponzi scheme.

The aforementioned individuals had reportedly formulated YouTube videos in order to recruit more people to be a part of the sham. Since the entire scheme was a multi-referral business, these promoters went on to earn a commission for bringing in more people.

Furthermore, this lawsuit was filed by the SEC in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing all five individuals of aiding the program.

Lara Shalov Mehraban, Associate Regional Director of SEC’s New York Regional Office, addressed the same in SEC’s recent press release and stated,

“We allege that these defendants unlawfully sold unregistered digital asset securities by actively promoting the BitConnect lending program to retail investors. We will seek to hold accountable those who illegally profit by capitalizing on the public’s interest in digital assets.”

While this platform hasn’t been functioning for a while now, the SEC hopes to garner  “injunctive relief, disgorgement plus interest, and civil penalties” through its latest lawsuit.

Turkey Witnesses the Arrest of 62 People Involved in the Thodex Crypto Scam Case

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Turkey was one of the countries that decided to pull the plug on cryptocurrencies. The country went on to suggest that the country would soon ban any sort of payments in crypto. A few days after this announcement, a prominent Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, Thodex was called out by its users for looting them for over hundreds of millions of dollars. Just as this investigation was underway, the Turkish law enforcement nabbed over 78 people involved in the case.

Anadolu, a Turkish newspaper announced that the prosecutors involved in the case had bagged over 78 arrest warrants. However, only 62 were detained by the Turkish police.

Turkey Police Bag 78 Arrest Warrants

As per the report, it was noted that the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had issued warrants for over 78 individuals that were in contact with the Thodex. Furthermore, the Anti-Cyber ​​Crimes Branch Directorate went on to nab over 62 suspects throughout 8 provinces in Istanbul.

Along with the 62 people that were detained, the Turkey police captured several documents as well as digital materials pertaining to the case.

While the law enforcement has bagged these many suspects, the main person involved in the case, Fatih Faruk Ozer, the founder of the crypto exchange was still missing. Reports suggest that the founder had fled to Albania through a commercial flight from Istanbul. However, a complaint was filed against the CEO/founder Ozer over “aggravated fraud” by a Turkish lawyer, Abdullah Usame Ceran.

Furthermore, it was found that the cryptocurrency exchange’s website was still inactive, depriving users of the right to access their accounts and withdraw funds.

As Turkey prepares to impose a ban on crypto, the Thodex incident seems to have stirred up the country. However, Cemil Ertem, the senior economic adviser to the President of Turkey said,

“Turkey will undoubtedly carry out a regulation that’s in line with its economy but also by following global developments.”

MoneySense launches Campaign to raise public awareness on the perils Of Crypto Scams and online trading

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There’s no rose without a thorn, similarly, despite being immensely valuable, the crypto industry deals with scams and hacks. Singaporeans have been urged to stay safe against any possible scam with regard to crypto through a campaign.

Earlier this month, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS], the prominent financial regulator in the region, warned about the risks of trading cryptocurrencies. While the Chairman affirmed that MAS was keeping a close watch on the industry, he also urged Singaporeans to stay alert.

More recently, it was revealed that a campaign had been launched by the Singaporean national financial education programme, MoneySense to raise awareness with regard to the use of crypto.

Singaporeans To Use MoneySense’s Campaign To Stay Alert

The Straits Times reported that MoneySense had rolled out a campaign in light of the ongoing surge in the popularity of crypto. This initiative reportedly encourages users to steer clear of any potential scams pertaining to crypto and online trading. Users of digital assets are reminded to “always ask, check and confirm the legitimacy of the entity marketing the product before making any investment.”

The MoneySense web page talks about ways to identify investment scams, including red flags, fictitious track records, and many more.

MAS’s Shanmugaratnam had previously pointed out the volatile nature of crypto. He had further stated,

“The crypto assets space is constantly evolving. MAS has been closely monitoring developments and will continue to adapt its rules as needed to ensure that regulation remains effective and commensurate with the risks posed. Investors, on their part, should exercise extreme caution when trading cryptocurrencies.”

Furthermore, Lee Hsien Loong, the Singaporean Prime Minister had to encounter a scam that involved the sale of fake tokens, at the beginning of the month. Perpetrators gathered information from the Prime Minister’s social media accounts, prompting them to open a BitClout account without the Prime Minister’s permission. This caused quite a stir in Singapore at the time. Hence the latest campaign would be beneficial for the region.

Brave Browser Integrates Anti-Phishing Solutions To Prevent Crypto Scams

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Prominent privacy-centric web browser, Brave has been making headlines lately with several updates along with its Gemini integration to enhance its crypto features. The platform once again made news following its association with a cybersecurity firm, PhisFort.

Protection Against Crypto Scams

As the popularity and the value of the crypto industry have been progressing rapidly, the attacks and scams pertaining to the same seem to be following suit. While every other crypto platform has been taking the necessary measures to prevent scams and attacks, Brave joined the list and collaborated with PhisFort. On Tuesday, Brave browser took to Twitter to announce that the platform had incorporated PhishFort’s anti-phishing solutions to steer clear of potential crypto scams.

The tweet read,

“Brave now uses @PhishFort’s open source anti-phishing solutions for our in-browser Crypto Wallets to better protect our users. PhishFort’s spam list detects crypto scams and immediately warns our users of any suspicious domains.”

PhishFort isn’t new to the crypto-verse, the cybersecurity firm has partnered with several notable crypto platforms including MyEtherWallet as well as Binance Labs. PhishFort also elaborated on its latest affiliation with Brave and suggested that users of the browser would be protected with additional security that would have a vital impression on the protection of the community.

The anti-phishing platform shared a blog post detailing the importance of its integration on the browser. The post indicated,

“This integration provides additional security to their users who use the crypto wallet functionality built into the browser as they are now protected by our real time intelligence feed.”

Previously, PhishFort had highlighted that crypto users are prone to scams as “crypto is a high-value target for criminals.”

Back in June, Brave Browser was subject to immense backlash for the inclusion of affiliate links to the searches of its users. This further redirected the users of the browser to another website. However, the platform rectified its mistake and affirmed that the personal data of its users were not compromised.

The platform’s latest move along with Gemini integration reveals that Brave is diving deep into the crypto industry by bolstering its features related to crypto.

Whale Alert Report: Crypto Scammers Revenue to Spike by 2000% Before 2020 Ends

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According to a new report by the cryptocurrency intelligence firm, Whale Alert, scammers stole $24 million in bitcoin during the first half of 2020. Online scammers find it too easy to mislead their crypto investors because their tactics are incredibly adept and aggressive, according to a report published on July 10.

For instance, a specific highly successful crypto scam has raked up more than $130,000 a day ‘with nothing more than a one-page website, a bitcoin address, and a decent amount of YouTube advertising.’ While another scheme has earned more than $1.5 million in six months by luring investors into a sham crypto exchange using an unprofessional website perforated with spelling mistakes.

Scammer revenue to spike by 2000 percent by end of the year

Whale Alert suggests that it has gathered and assessed “hundreds of thousands” of data from websites, bitcoin addresses, and reports using Scam Alert, a new tool for reporting, monitoring, and analyzing blockchain crimes. Whale Alert, famous for tracking large-scale BTC transactions, discovered that “crypto crime pays a lot.” Crypto crimes are significantly motivated by the fact that the venture is risk-free, which means that the perpetrators have a very high chance of getting away with the crime.

Indeed, the report claims that fraudsters have got away with $38 million worth of bitcoins over the last four years, omitting Ponzi schemes. Whale Alert projects scammers’ annual revenues may rise by 2,000 percent since 2017, reaching $50 million annually.

Giveaway scams are more popular according to Whale Alert Report

There are different types of swindling strategies, including sextortion, sham exchanges, video scams, and bitcoin recovery schemes. However, according to the Whale Alert, the most popular type of extortion is a giveaway strategy. Giveaway scams tend to impersonate public figures such as SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk, or a prominent crypto exchange for convincing individuals to send their bitcoins using YouTube advertising.

As per Whale Alert, such fraudulent schemes can rake from a few thousand dollars to $300,000, subject to the strategy employed and the scam ‘s efforts. Notably, the report also warned that the revamped approach suggests that “entire professional teams” may be involved in some of the most fortunate crypto scams.

 

Facebook Filed a Lawsuit Against a Developer for Making Software that Helped Scammers Dodge its Ad-Review System to Promote COVID-19, Crypto Scams.

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Facebook said Thursday it filed a lawsuit against company founder Basant Gajjar, LeadCloak, alleging that it helped coronavirus scammers run deceptive ads on Facebook and Instagram by selling “cloaking” software. Basant Gajjar, a Bangkok-based Indian man, has been running a non-registered business in California offering clocking services since 2016. The lawsuit was filed before the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, as reported.

Cloaking is a deceptive technique that hinders ad review systems by disguising the nature of the website associated with an ad. Cloaking software fools ad-review systems by showing them entirely innocent websites connected to each advertisement. Whereas consumers can see one product in the ad, the ad will actually take them to a website for a product that is completely different.

Leadcloak’s software has been used to conceal websites with COVID-19-related fraud, cryptocurrencies, pharmaceuticals, diet pills, and fake news sites. Some of those cloaked websites have used famous celebrities ‘images. LeadCloak’s software also targeted a number of other technology companies including Google, Oath, WordPress, Shopify, and others.

Facebook has taken technical compliance action against Leadcloak and users that have found to have used the software. Facebook further stated:

“This suit will also further our efforts to identify Leadcloak’s customers and take additional enforcement actions against them. This action is one of a number of efforts we are taking to protect our users and hold people who abuse our systems accountable in Court.”

Last year, Facebook loosened its ban on blockchain– and cryptocurrency-related advertising, allowing more companies working on those technologies to promote their efforts social network. Scammers target Facebook users with sponsored ads for fake cryptocurrencies. These fake ad scammers now use sophisticated cloaking technology to replicate the popular website or advertise a “big” investment opportunity in a nonexistent cryptocurrency.

In short, scammers are always finding their way, the best we can do is always be alert, remember the old line “if it’s too good to be true, it’s probably.”

Crypto scammers pretend as FCA in Emails to capture investors attention

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The latest report states that crypto scammers are misleading investors by sending emails, impersonating UK’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). These emails are intending to amass investor’s interest by promising “guaranteed chance to earn” on crypto-related investment.

Scammers Guaranteeing Huge Earning Using FCA’s name

As scammers are quite smarter, these impersonated emails were featuring the FCA’s branding and Prudential Regulation Authority’s logo with a subject line, entitling “Guaranteed chance to earn.”

The emails quickly want investors to believe in the brighter future of Bitcoin in terms of value and specifically mentioned the price could hit over $20k by 2020. With that, recipients were encouraged to click on a “Click here” button.

“Bitcoin is still a long way off its peak price of $20,000, which it reached in 2017, but some cryptocurrency experts believe it could hit an even higher value by 2020.”

While FCA had confirmed their specific team is scrutinizing the matter, they have advised having due diligence ahead of clicking such buttons or act upon such emails. FCA always quickly cautioned investors on such matters and this time too, it warned that;

“The correspondence is likely to be linked to organized fraud and we strongly advise you not to respond to the criminals in any way,”

Nevertheless, this caught the attention of few more users when Dominic Thomas, founder of Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers, took to Twitter and opened up about such scam emails. He said that he received the email five times over the weekend and stated that

“Email reveals the extent of the problem with cheap and easy new media ‘advertising'”.

Following other such queries on scam email, FCA ensured that they would never contact members of the public for money or any other bank details. It further warned recipients and the general public that this might be associated with the fraud and requested not to respond to the criminals in any way. It read that;

“Look for signs that the email, letter or phone call may not be from us, such as it listing a mobile or overseas contact phone number, an email address from a Hotmail or Gmail account, or a foreign PO Box number. “Scam emails or letters often contain spelling mistakes and poor grammar.”, It continued.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

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