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The number of scams and frauds are the underside of the rapid growth in the cryptocurrency sector. Over the past few years, over $10 Billion in crypto funds have been wiped out in illegal activities.
Most recently, Google, the leading search engine and internet-based service provider, has filed a lawsuit against two Chinese residents. The firm claims that the accused leveraged the Google Play Store to scam over 100k users worldwide.
The involved individuals used Google to make their bogus cryptocurrency investment application global. Yunfeng Sun, aka Alphonse Sun, and Hongnam Cheung, aka Zhang Hongnam Chinese nationals, operated a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme since 2019.
Yunfeng and Hongnam misled Google into uploading their fraudulent investment apps to the store so that they could reach a broader user base.
While talking to CNBC, the general counsel at Google, Halimah DeLaine, said, “This is a unique opportunity for us to use our resources to actually combat bad actors who were running an extensive crypto scheme to defraud some of our users.”
Adding, she notes, “In 2023 alone we saw over a billion dollars within the U.S. of cryptocurrency fraud and scams and this [lawsuit] allows us to not only use our resources to protect users, but to also serve as sort of a precedent to future bad actors that we don’t tolerate this behavior.”
The lawsuit further details that the applications were designed so that the user could see balance and others, but ultimately, they couldn’t with their funds.
Court’s document states, “The texts would purport to be from wrong numbers, but then the texters would strike up conversations with the victims, developing ‘friendships’ and ‘romantic attachments.”
Google also quotes that when the ecosystem identified and removed the application from the Play Store, they uploaded more applications, “varying computer network infrastructure and accounts to obfuscate their identities, and making material misrepresentations to Google in the process.”
The internet-based service leader Google seeks $75,000 and a permanent injunction against the accused and their fellows.
Other News
Recent information shows that Ripple plans to enter the stablecoin market by launching its in-house stablecoin, which will peg the U.S. dollar. The company states that the stablecoin will always be backed 1 to 1 by an equivalent sum of assets.
Ripple asserts that reserves would be accounted for in publicly available monthly attestation reports. However, which company will carry out the auditing procedure still needs to be determined.
Ellipsis Labs, a cryptocurrency exchange developer, has raised $20 Million in Series-A funding; Paradigm led the round. Electric Capital and other leading firms participated in the funding round.
The funds Ellipsis secured will be used to boost its Decentralized (DeFi) technology. Ellipsis Labs also designed Phoenix, a Solana-based decentralized exchange.
Prisma Finance paused its service on March 28 after it faced a theft of $11.6 Million; the ecosystem recently informed that it had devised a plan to uplight the halt over the services safely.
Restarting the borrowing facility over Prisma Finance will require consensus through an ongoing vote.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions stated by the author or any other person in this article are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
