Two application developers placed 87 fraudulent applications on the online store Google Play. These apps forced users to pay high fees to withdraw money from their cryptocurrency investments. Google claims the developers violated the RICO Act and committed bank fraud. It also notes that they violated various policies on Google’s platforms.
Google filed a lawsuit against two cryptocurrency application developers!
Search engine giant Google has filed a lawsuit against two developers for placing a number of fraudulent cryptocurrency-based applications in the Google Play store. The two defendants, Yunfeng Sun and Hongnam Cheung, allegedly placed 87 fraudulent applications on Google Play in the last four years. Google filed a lawsuit on the issue Thursday in the Southern District of New York. Accordingly, these plans affected at least 100,000 people. Allegedly, 8,700 of them live in the United States.
Again, allegedly, the situation changed when the victims tried to withdraw the funds. Because they had to pay fees to cover the cost of so-called principal investments and earnings. In some cases, the app charged additional fees of 10% to 30% to withdraw user funds. In fact, sometimes they did not pay these funds at all. In this context, Google included the following statements in its complaint:
Defendants and their representatives designed the fake applications made available on Google Play to appear legitimate. User interfaces attempted to convince victims that they were holding funds on the app and earning a ‘return’ on their investment. However, these statements were wrong. The apps were not actual trading platforms; They were only there to take users’ money, which the scammers then made off with.
Fraud method: Pig butchering!
Google removed such cryptocurrency applications when it detected them. However, developers were hiding their identities and network infrastructure to place new applications on the Google Play store. Developers also used the “pork butchering” fraud technique, which involves gaining the victim’s trust through seemingly friendly or romantic connections to influence the victim to invest in a fraudulent financial venture.
Developers would initiate the conversation with wrong number messages and establish a relationship. They then suggested victims download an app called “TionRT” that claimed to be a cryptocurrency exchange. Scammers were telling victims to invest using TionRT to earn extra income. Additionally, the scammers were offering to withdraw their money when they saw profits. But they had to pay a fee to get their money. For these and other scams, Google alleges that the developers violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, committed bank fraud, and violated various policies on Google’s platforms.
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