Two Estonian citizens were arrested in Tallinn, Estonia, on an 18-count indictment for their alleged involvement in a $575 million cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday, Reuters reported. Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, both 37, allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of victims through a multi-faceted scheme, wherein they induced them to enter fraudulent equipment rental contracts with the defendants' cryptocurrency mining service called HashFlare, the department said in a statement. They also made victims invest in a virtual currency bank called Polybius Bank, which in reality was not a bank and never paid out the promised dividends, the Justice Department said. Victims paid more than $575 million to Potapenko and Turõgin’s companies and they both then used shell companies to launder the fraud proceeds and to purchase real estate and luxury cars, the department said.
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