Crimes | ForkLog - Part 111

ForkLog 24 05.03.2021

John McAfee faces up to 100 years in prison on fraud and money laundering charges

Prosecutors have charged entrepreneur John McAfee with seven counts of fraud and money laundering. The case will be heard in the Southern District of New York.

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ForkLog 28 05.03.2021

Co-founder of Floyd Mayweather-promoted ICO project sentenced to eight years in prison

The court sentenced Sohrab Sharma, one of the founders of the Centra Tech cryptocurrency project, to eight years in prison for his leading role in organizing an investor fraud scheme worth $25 million, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

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ForkLog 23 05.03.2021

Elite Russian-language hacker forum Maza hacked

One of the oldest Russian-language hacker forums, Maza (also known as Mazafaka), has been hacked. User data has leaked online. This was reported by Flashpoint researchers.

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ForkLog 54 04.03.2021

DeFi project Meerkat Finance on Binance Smart Chain suspected of exit scam

Hackers drained Meerkat Finance on the Binance Smart Chain of crypto assets worth about $32 million (13.96 million BUSD and 73,635 BNB). Users suspect the project developers of an exit scam. Meerkat Finance began operations just a day before the incident; at the time of writing, the project site was unavailable and the Twitter account had been deleted. According to a blockchain analyst, assets are distributed across several wallets; the alleged attackers altered the project's smart contract using the developers' account, suggesting the founders' keys may have been obtained, or this was an exit scam. The Meerkat Finance incident is the largest on the Binance Smart Chain to date. The Block reports that Binance has engaged investigators from Certik, PeckShield and Slowmist. The Telegram group of victims, “Meerkat_Rugpull”, now has 209 members. In early February, ForkLog reported on {{AOPEN_1}} exit scams of four projects on the BSC {{ACLOSE_1}}. Despite the relatively high centralization, Binance Smart Chain has attracted more DeFi users due to lower fees than Ethereum, where fees were at record highs. Earlier, the amount locked in PancakeSwap on the Binance Smart Chain {{AOPEN_3}} exceeded $4 billion {{ACLOSE_3}}. The daily volume of BSC transactions was more than twice that of Ethereum. The outflow of liquidity from Ethereum DeFi protocols to BSC allowed Binance's native token to rise to third place by market capitalization {{AOPEN_4}}{{ACLOSE_4}}. Earlier ForkLog reported that AMM platform {{AOPEN_5}} 1inch released a governance token on Binance Smart Chain {{ACLOSE_5}}. Subscribe to ForkLog news on Twitter.

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ForkLog 8 03.03.2021

Russian loses over half a million rubles trying to buy mining equipment

A local resident in the Vologda region turned to the authorities after becoming a victim of a fraudster during the purchase of cryptocurrency mining equipment. The police said.

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ForkLog 6 02.03.2021

Duma deputy urges regulation of cryptocurrencies amid ‘new forms of crime’

Criminals are increasingly using cryptocurrencies and the darknet, and therefore special attention must be paid to regulating virtual assets and combating information threats. This was stated by Anatoly Vyborny, chairman of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly's Defence and Security Commission and a State Duma deputy.

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ForkLog 58 02.03.2021

Scammers have started using Telegram bots to blackmail users

Malicious actors have begun using users' personal data collected by Telegram bots for blackmail and extortion.

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ForkLog 10 01.03.2021

Unknown attacker demanded a 500 BTC ransom from Tether.

The issuer of the largest-stablecoin by market capitalization, Tether (USDT), said it had received a ransom demand for 500 BTC (about $23 million at the time of writing).

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ForkLog 7 01.03.2021

Analysts forecast cryptocurrency fraud volume to reach $4.5 billion

In 2021, the amount of losses from cryptocurrency fraud could double and reach $4.5 billion, according to specialists from Kaspersky Lab, Izvestia reports.

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ForkLog 15 28.02.2021

DeFi project Furucombo hacked for $14 million

The Furucombo team said that an attacker compromised the DeFi project's proxy server, with losses of about $14 million in Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens.

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ForkLog 35 26.02.2021

Former FSB officers sentenced to 9 and 12 years in prison for extorting a bribe in Bitcoin

The court sentenced two former FSB investigators Sergey Belousov and Alexey Kolbov to nine and twelve years in a strict-regime prison for extorting a large bribe in Bitcoin, according to TASS.

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ForkLog 19 25.02.2021

Hacker demanded bitcoins to decrypt a company’s files in Zarechny

Law enforcement in the town of Zarechny has begun examining a complaint filed by the director of one of the firms. He says he has fallen victim to a hacker who demanded cryptocurrency.

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#Crimes