Crypto Exchange Owner Admits Laundering $1.8M in Online Auctions Fraud

[Vincent Stevens]

The owner of a now-defunct Romanian crypto exchange called CoinFlux has pled guilty to laundering roughly $1.8 million in a fraudulent scheme involving fake eBay ads and a car wash.

Vlad-Calin Nistor and 14 other defendants, including the owner of a car wash, have all entered guilty pleas at the Eastern District Court of Kentucky for their involvement in a racketeering conspiracy and cyber fraud scheme that defrauded millions of dollars from U.S. residents by selling goods that didn’t actually exist.

Beginning in 2013, the defendants began posting fake advertisements on sites such as eBay and Craigslist for items such as cars. Often using stolen identities, the group would pretend to be U.S. military personnel who needed to sell their goods before beginning a tour of duty. They even set up a fake call center to assuage any concerns victims had about the advertisements.

After the victim had sent payment, the group would begin the process of transferring the money out of the U.S. and back to Romania. Most of the time, this was done by converting illicit funds into crypto, usually bitcoin, and transferring it to Nistor and his crypto platform CoinFlux, where it would then be exchanged into the local currency.

Source of article: https://mycryptonewstoday.com/2020/06/crypto-exchange-owner-admits-laundering-1-8m-in-online-auctions-fraud/

[Guest Epicollapse]

Wow, I thought this only happens in the movies!

[MrD]

Actually auctions websites fraud is still present today. Now the criminals are using cryptocurrency to change and wash the funds.

[Guest StewartKerr]

Scammers have nothing sacred. There's no such thing as not knowing what they're doing. But what about scammers who scam people by selling stuff they don't own and profiting from it? Scammers can sell your phone knowing you have it, but it's not your property. And if you try to return it, you'll look stupid and helpless. But what really baffles me is that on eBay, such transactions are possible in principle. They need to address the security of https://covery.ai/. Such cases very much spoil the reputation of the trading platform.