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Coinflux founder and fourteen others plead guilty in a multi-million dollar scam involving crypto.

Crypto exchange Coinflux founder and fourteen others have pleaded guilty in a multi-million-dollar scheme in an online auctio
Crypto exchange Coinflux founder and fourteen others have pleaded guilty in a multi-million-dollar scheme in an online auction fraud.

According to the Romania Insider report, fifteen defendants have pleaded guilty to-date for their roles in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud American victims through online auction fraud. Among the defendants is Vlad-Calin Nistor, the founder of a Bitcoin exchange Coinflux, which has been shut down. The defendants from Romania participated in a criminal conspiracy that engaged in a large-scale scheme of online auction fraud and money laundering involving cryptocurrency.

According to the news report, the defendants participated in a criminal conspiracy that made them millions of dollars in an online auction fraud. Romania-based members of the network posted fake advertisements to popular online auction and sales websites such as Craigslist and eBay for high-cost goods that did not exist. The fraudsters lured in victims from the USA to send funds for the falsely advertised goods using persuasive narratives, such as by impersonating a military member who needed to sell the advertised item before deployment.

Defendants created fake online accounts to post ads and communicate with victims, often using Americans’ stolen identities. The defendants also delivered invoices to the victims bearing trademarks of reputable companies to make the transaction appear legitimate.

Fraudsters used crypto to launder funds.

The report further revealed that once victims were convinced to send payment, the defendants engaged in a complicated money laundering scheme, which involved converting the funds to cryptocurrency and transferring them to foreign-based money launderers. The Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said that Today’s modern cybercriminals are relying on increasingly sophisticated techniques to defraud victims, often masquerading legitimate businesses.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one of the defendants, Stefan Popescu, 30, headed an operation whereby he knowingly negotiated fraudulently obtained crypto. The press release further added that Popescu would sometimes receive crypto from coconspirators who obtained the funds through online fraud scams and transfer the cryptocurrency to other conspirators.

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