The Chinese police have detained 27 top suspects in the PlusToken cryptocurrency pyramid, as well as 82 key participants in the scheme. Damage from PlusToken is estimated at $ 5.7 billion.
The PlusToken wallet was launched in 2018 and was positioned as a decentralized international cryptocurrency project. Users were promised monthly payments from 6% to 19% of the invested amount and other bonuses for attracting referrals. However, the project worked for about 14 months, and since June 27, 2019, users have lost the ability to withdraw money. Previously, the creators of the PlusToken cryptocurrency wallet were suspected of stealing their clients' crypto assets worth about $ 3 billion. Even at that time, this was the largest collapse of the cryptocurrency pyramid in China.
According to local media and law enforcement agencies, more than 2 million people have already suffered from the activities of this pyramid. According to preliminary estimates, defrauded investors invested over 40 billion yuan ($ 5.7 billion) in various cryptocurrencies in the fraudulent project. It also turned out that the number of referral levels "grew" to 3000.
Primitive Ventures partner Dovey Wan confirmed on Twitter about the arrest of PlusToken organizers. She explained that they had been wanted for 12 months. Such a long search can be explained by the fact that the key participants in the pyramid have dispersed to different countries, and this complicated the search activities.
Considering that all PlusToken organizers have already been arrested, the pyramid has finally ceased its activities. Wang added that attackers have recently laundered at least $ 1 billion since the movement of coins through EOS and ETH wallets owned by scammers was discovered last month. Therefore, it is necessary to track the further movement of all suspicious coins.
In March, researchers at OXT Research reported that most of the bitcoins collected by the PlusToken pyramid were withdrawn through cryptocurrency platforms that identify customers.
