Crypto

The caller said he was police. The line was the trapdoor.

A London gang cold-called crypto holders, told them their assets were at risk, and moved the money into a Dubai safety deposit box and a Louis Vuitton receipt trail. Then the Met arrived at their door.

Latest
Crypto

The call came from the police. The police were the thieves.

A Southwark Crown Court sentencing this week put three men behind bars for a £5 million ($5.4M USD) crypto fraud built on a single lie: that the caller on the other end of the line was the police. The lie worked because the callers had already done the reading.

Crypto

Eight companies, one name, and the pipe that kept the money moving

Federal prosecutors allege Benjamin Paul Wiener built eight companies to move roughly $20 million from dozens of investors through a loop that looked like returns and worked like a pump. This is what the pipe looked like from the chair of someone who wired in.

Ponzi / Pyramid

The liquidity pool was a sentence in an opinion letter

Christopher Delgado has agreed to plead guilty to running a $250 million crypto Ponzi out of Orlando. The pool he sold investors on existed mostly as a phrase in a law firm's opinion letter.

Crypto

The phone went dark at 2:14 a.m. The wallet went dark by sunrise.

Polish authorities arrested four people this week in a SIM-swap and money laundering operation that allegedly drained tens of millions of zloty in crypto. A pseudonymous investigator linked one of the suspects to the case through his own Instagram feed.

The Daily Brief

The screen showed $1.2 million. The withdrawal button was the lie.

Nico Reyes · Jul 7

The website still loaded. That was the trick that kept them quiet.

Nico Reyes · Jul 7

The token rose 1,001 times in a day. The chair stayed empty for months.

Nico Reyes · Jul 7

The WhatsApp thread looked like a friendship. It was the slaughterhouse floor.

Nico Reyes · Jul 7

The price on the Seoul screen moved because someone in another country needed it to

Mark Tell · Jul 7

He sold them a movement. He bought a yacht and two mattresses.

Mark Tell · Jun 29

The address change form was the part that finally caught him.

Nico Reyes · Jun 23

The login page looked right. The padlock looked right. The money was already gone.

Elena Ruiz · Jun 16

The bank blocked the wire, so the courier came to her door

Nico Reyes · Jun 16

The coin had a name. The men who sold it had a plan to disappear.

Nico Reyes · Jun 15

The court asked for proof. The trapdoor had already closed.

Nico Reyes · Jun 9

She thought he was lonely in Singapore. He was in a Poipet casino, reading a script.

Mark Tell · Jun 8

The hedge fund was a man with no face and a wallet that ate the deposit.

Elena Ruiz · Jun 8

The valve in Dubai kept turning after the company said it stopped

Elena Ruiz · Jun 4
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