Cryptocurrency fraud by Russians led to $ 40 million in losses for Ukrainians

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has uncovered a fraudulent financial pyramid scheme called Life is Good, run by representatives of the Russian Federation. This became known from the official website of the special service.

According to the SBU, the project initially operated exclusively in Russia, but after 2017, the organizers targeted the Ukrainian market. During the entire existence of the fraudulent project, the criminals defrauded almost a thousand victims for a total of $ 40 million.

Representatives of «Life is good» promised users a profit from investments in promising world-class enterprises. The fraudsters accumulated the funds on bank accounts and crypto wallets. According to the SBU, the organizers of the pyramid scheme set up a scheme to attract virtual assets through a network of exchanges in Ukraine. The agency did not specify which exchangers were involved.

During the search of the Kyiv office of the pyramid scheme and the criminals' residence, evidence of crimes was found. Among them: computers, mobile phones, accounting records, draft records with evidence of illegal activity, souvenirs and promotional products that the fraudsters used to attract investors.

It is currently unknown who was behind the fraudulent scheme. One of the project’s top managers was served a notice of suspicion of committing an offense under Part 3 of Art. 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fraud). The investigation is ongoing to establish all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice.

As a reminder, in late March, the cyber police of Ukraine managed to detect and eliminate a hostile bot farm that was spreading fake news on social media. The fake posts and comments on social media were published allegedly from ordinary Ukrainian citizens. The bot farm had at least 2,000 fake accounts. For each bot created, the offender received payment in rubles.