European Criminal Justice Agency Raids Properties, Uncovers $15M Crypto Scam

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EU criminal justice agency EuroJust has raided across Europe to bust a crypto scam that has caused 15 million losses.

EU cracks down on crypto investment scam

EuroJust worked with Italian and Albanian authorities to tackle an online investment scam and seized 3 million assets. The agency noted that the online investment fraud was carried out by a syndicate of criminal groups based in these countries.

The organized crime group operated from a call center in Tirana. The group used untraceable VPNs and virtual phone numbers to contact victims by phone. After asking the victims to register on a portal, they recover the transferred money and reset the newly created account. Once done, the group embezzles the money and disappears.

EuroJust detailed the method used:

The suspects allegedly contacted the victim by phone using an unidentified virtual number and an outsourced virtual private network. They asked the victim to create an account on the portal. , once the transfer is completed, resets the newly created account, diverts the amount received and makes it untraceable.

The perpetrators have earned the trust of their victims by allowing them to get instant financial returns for a small initial investment. After consulting a seemingly reputable online trading platform, the victims were contacted by brokers offering lucrative investments in risk-free cryptocurrencies.

The gang then accessed the victim’s savings bank account, asking him to invest his savings in the scam.

BTC/USD is trading at $16,844 on a 6-month chart. Source: Trading View

In the final stages, the victim was contacted by other gang members and persuaded to invest more to recover the lost funds. According to the current estimate, the loss of the scam is a total of 15 million. The raids were carried out in 13 locations in Albania. 160 electronic devices and 11 goods were seized.

Crypto scams have increased since 2020

According to New York-based crypto trade monitoring firm Solidus Labs, 2 million people have fallen victim to crypto scams since September 2022.

The report noted that five centralized exchanges had over $1 billion in exposure to these scams. 17 crypto exchanges had an exposure of over $100 million and 93 exchanges had an exposure of $1 million.

Crypto scams by exchanges. Source: Solidus

The report noted:

Almost all major crypto exchanges are affected. These exchanges are required to prevent money laundering under the regulatory regimes of each jurisdiction in which they operate. Additionally, they face additional regulatory requirements in many jurisdictions regarding investor protection and the prevention of market abuse.

Solidus claims that 2022 has become the year in which honeypots have been the most successful crypto scams. The Squid Game token scam grew 45,000% in a matter of days and ended with anonymous founders fleeing with thousands of dollars in investor funds.

Featured image of Patch, chart from TradingView.com

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