22. July 2021

This article has been indexed from E Hacking News – Latest Hacker News and IT Security News

A citizen of Sweden was sentenced to 15 years in prison for manipulating a cryptocurrency scam claiming to pay investors based on the value of gold reserves.

Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson, 47, and his firm, Eastern Metal Securities (EMS), were charged with a securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in March this year after being prosecuted in the United States following his arrest in Thailand in 2019. Later, he was extradited. 

Karlsson claimed to operate an investment service based on cryptocurrency and investors who participated in EMS from 2012 to 2019 were offered a plan to buy stocks for less than $100 and ultimately realize a return equivalent to 1.15 kilograms of gold. In 2019, 1.15 kg of gold was worth more than $45,000. Today, its worth could be over $58,000.

To participate in the scheme, investors were asked to buy shares through cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Moreover, merchants had been instructed that in case of the ‘unlikely’ occasion wherein the shares fail to attain their promised worth, participants would have 97% of their initial investment returned.