Kazakhstan Police Shut Down ‘Fake Crypto Exchange’

Police in Kazakhstan say they’ve shut down a suspected fraudulent crypto buying and selling platform, with its alleged mastermind arrested.

Per Nur.KZ, the Ministry of Inside Affairs introduced {that a} “23-year-old man” had been arrested.

The person’s title begins with L and he was born in 1999, the police added.

Police mentioned L was “suspected of deceiving residents” within the metropolis of Almaty by working a pretend cryptocurrency platform.

An unnamed variety of “native residents” got here ahead to law enforcement officials within the metropolis’s Auezov district to make a press release.

In line with them, the suspect, additionally an Almaty resident, supplied them the flexibility to lift cash by utilizing his “on-line crypto platform.”

However once they tried to withdraw their funds from the “platform,” they have been reportedly unable to take action.

Police suspect that L “didn’t intend to satisfy his obligations to return the cash.”

The platform is believed to have amassed “at the least” some $7,000 value of funding from at the least 11 folks.

However police suspect this may occasionally solely be the tip of the iceberg.

Officers mentioned they have been conducting extra investigations “geared toward establishing extra episodes.”

Underneath Kazakhstan’s legislation, monetary fraud “dedicated on a big scale” is punishable by imprisonment of up seven years, in addition to “confiscation of property.”

Convicted people in such circumstances could be barred from “holding sure positions” or “participating in sure actions for as much as six years,” the media outlet famous.

Crypto Fraud – On the Rise in Kazakhstan?

Final month, police in Almaty warned of an increase in crypto scammers.

Per InAlmaty, officers warned that “with the arrival of digital technique of cost and cryptocurrencies,” the “strategies and varieties of web fraud are growing.”

Officers warned the general public:

“Don’t put money into doubtful tasks that promise massive dividends by investing in cryptocurrencies […] and discuss the advantages of investing of their agency.”

Regardless, the nation stays a serious hub of the worldwide crypto mining industry, and the federal government has brazenly courted industrial miners up to now.

Additionally final month, it was revealed that miners in Kazakhstan paid some $7 million worth of taxes in FY2022.