Pyramid schemes or Ponzi Schemes have grown over the years in the crypto industry and have seen many unsuspecting investors lose to malicious actors. In what appears to buttress this point, a certain individual has been accused of carrying out one of the biggest fraud in the crypto industry.
Even though the crypto industry is still young, this hack will eventually go down as a noteworthy one for the financial system as a whole compared to other aspects of the financial system. As of now, authorities and law enforcement have not been able to uncover much information asides from the fact that the man is in his 30s and goes by the initials F.F.
Authorities say that F.F is still on the run
This entire crypto scam was said to have started in the early parts of 2019, with known crypto exchange Bit Grail. According to records, the crypto exchange has filed for bankruptcy after getting involved in a newly developed digital asset known as Nano Coin. Further details revealed that about 230,000 unsuspecting victims were scammed, with the crypto exchange carting away nothing less than $146 million in the scam.
According to the Italian police, this scam will go down as one of the biggest globally and the biggest in the European country. The police noted that this is the first time they will document malicious activities conducted to swindle investors across Italy and Europe at large.
The law enforcement further said that they would continue to make huge strides and hope that they would be able to apprehend the brains behind the whole operation before the end of the year. Even with the suspect now at large, an official of the police department has noted that he will face a lengthy jail term for charges ranging from computer hacking, fraudulent bankruptcy claims, and money laundering if he is eventually caught.
The highest number of scam witnessed in 2020
Police said that the first scam started in 2018 after the criminal alerted some of their officials to a huge amount of stolen Nano coins. With the police conducting the necessary investigations, they soon realized that this malicious actor carried out the acts himself.
According to the Cybercrimes national director, Ivano Gabrielli, they have still not established if the said individual committed the crime or resolved to put better security measures in place after he discovered it. Police have claimed that even if he was not a participant, he could have done better in the first place to avoid the hack.
The law enforcement said that his late action specifically means that he knowingly allowed someone to steal the coins, which means he might be responsible. With 2020 being one of the best years of the crypto industry, the number of scams and hacks that have taken place has been alarming.
The lost recent sentence was that of the Locky program’s creator, Alexander Vinnick, who was sentenced to five years imprisonment for money laundering. Vinnick was said to have stolen nothing less than $150 million in Bitcoin.
