Last updated on August 26th, 2022 at 04:19 pm
Authorities in China have arrested 109 members of PlusToken project scam, which has been described as one of the biggest cryptocurrency scams in recent years.
It was gathered that 27 members who were members of the project had fled the country while 82 were key members if the scam, reported Cailian News.
The members were said to have operated the illicit project in China and abroad which led to a loss of billions of US dollars by investors in various cryptocurrencies.
How the scammers operated PlusToken project
The project according to the report, involved more than 2 million participants, with more than 3,000 hierarchical relationships.
It involved the total value of digital currencies exceeding 40 billion yuan ($5.8 billion), it was gathered.
The global multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme which is now defunct allegedly capitalised on the gullibility of investors around the world, promising them handsome payouts if they invested in the token and, in turn, urged others to invest in turn of a small “commission.”
When was PlusToken launched?
PlusToken was launched in 2018 as an international crypto wallet project. The brains behind the project dubiously claimed that the project is supported by a South Korean team and ex-Samsung and Google employees.
During its reign, it gained popularity throughout Asia, and reportedly gained over three million users by May 2019.
The scam is believed to have played a negative impact on the value of bitcoin because the scammers employed novel methods, such as using 6,000 wallets to mask the funds, to cash out the illicit-gained stash of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS.
In May 2020, Twitter-based crypto transaction bot, WhaleAlert, alerted the world that “12,000 #BTC (118,852,619 USD) were transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet.”
The transaction was later followed by a second transaction splitting the 12,000 BTC into smaller sums. The wallet was later traced to the PlusToken bitcoin ponzi scheme, cointelegraph reported.
Is it the only fake project?
No!
A similar project called InksNation is currently gaining momentum in Nigeria, Africa’s cryptocurrency market. Though, Security Exchange Commission (SEC) warned Nigerians about the non-existent coin project, the guy behind it continued to promise interested people to invest in it for them to have a life-time salary when it’s launched.