Since July 2022, a global law enforcement effort coordinated by Europol and Eurojust has worked with crypto entrepreneurs and companies to stop cross-border crypto frauds.
Since June 2022, officials from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, and Serbia have worked with Europol and Eurojust, two EU institutions for law enforcement cooperation. The inquiry discovered a criminal organization that caused losses of over $2.1 million, mostly to German investors.
According to Europol, the con artists convinced their victims to invest in phony cryptocurrency investment programs and websites, including those from Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada. This discovery ultimately resulted in the formation of a cross-border inquiry task team.
Scammers operating out of four contact centers in eastern Europe persuaded prospective victims to commit more money by promising them rich returns on little bets. Europol speculates that the overall losses might be in the hundreds of millions of euros given the number of unreported incidents.
Across the course of the investigation, 261 people were interrogated, 22 places in the EU were investigated, and 30 people were detained, including two in Bulgaria, two in Cyprus, three in Germany, and 214 in Serbia. Additionally confiscated were hardware wallets, cash, automobiles, electronic devices, and papers.
The crypto community continues a proactive strategy to undermine fraudsters through proactive warning announcements, hack prevention patches, and public education while scammers continue to pose as government agencies and corporations.
According to research from the bug bounty and security services provider Immunefi, the cryptocurrency market lost a total of $3.9 billion in 2022.
Hacks were responsible for 95.6% of the entire loss from the lot, with fraud, scams, and rug pulls accounting for the remaining 4.4%. The blockchains that were attacked the most were Ethereum and BNB Chain.
Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador proposed “proactively identifying and correcting vulnerabilities” to safeguard the public and restore investor confidence.
