Financial crimes involving crypto-currency reached $4.3 billion in 2019, and the highest so far, whereas 2017 and 2018 combined crypto-fraud was $3 billion. Investigation showed that 90% of the amount involved in the fraud came from six major schemes; victims of this fraud were told to buy a lot of coins from PlusToken, with a promise of receiving massive interest in a short term. After the customers purchased the coins, the sites then became inactive, and they lost their money. However, the Chinese authorities already arrested six people in connetion to the PlusToken scam.
It was discovered that PlusToken was one of the Ponzi schemes which emerged following the introduction of bitcoin, and was used by fraudsters to scam investors who were looking for platforms to invest their money and make profit. With the recent rise in crypto-fraud, regulators have started working to address financial crimes relating to cryptocurrency.
