{"id":74536,"date":"2023-02-23T10:40:05","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T08:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=74536"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:41:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:41:25","slug":"forsage-founders-charged-in-340m-crypto-pyramid-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/forsage-founders-charged-in-340m-crypto-pyramid-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Forsage founders charged in $340m crypto-pyramid scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A U.S. court has charged four Russians with organising and promoting the Forsage cryptocurrency pyramid, whose victims around the world lost approximately $340 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Forsage Founders Indicted in $340M DeFi Crypto Scheme<\/p>\n<p>First Charged Criminal Fraud Case Involving a DeFi Ponzi Scheme<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/s9xu3evTiQ\">https:\/\/t.co\/s9xu3evTiQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Criminal Division (@DOJCrimDiv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DOJCrimDiv\/status\/1628531435211464706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 22, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A federal grand jury in Oregon returned an indictment against Vladimir Ohotnikov (Lado), Olena Oblamskaya (Lola Ferrari), Mikhail Sergeev (Mike Mooney, Gleb or Gleb Million) and Sergey Maslakov.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, these Russian nationals marketed the purported DeFi platform Forsage as a &#8216;matrix project&#8217; based on network marketing and smart contracts.<\/p>\n<p>The defendants promoted Forsage through social media as a legal and profitable business opportunity, &#8216;but in reality ran the project as a Ponzi scheme and an investment pyramid&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>According to law enforcement, the defendants deployed smart contracts that &#8216;systematised&#8217; a platform operating on Ethereum, BNB Chain and Tron. The software automatically diverted a portion of new investors&#8217; funds to earlier participants. One of the contracts (xGold) sent assets to accounts controlled by the founders.<\/p>\n<p>On-chain analysis showed that more than 80% of Forsage investors recovered less than they invested. More than 50% of users did not receive any payouts.<\/p>\n<p>Under charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the scheme&#8217;s organisers face up to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in August 2022, <span data-descr=\"U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission\" class=\"old_tooltip\">SEC<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/sec-accuses-forsage-founders-of-promoting-a-300-million-crypto-pyramid\">filed a civil suit<\/a> against the founders and providers of Forsage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A U.S. court has charged four Russians with organizing and promoting the Forsage cryptocurrency pyramid, whose victims around the world lost approximately $340 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,1163,26],"class_list":["post-74536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-ponzi-schemes","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"47","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74538,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74536\/revisions\/74538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}