Pakistan‘s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) reportedly issued a formal notice to crypto exchange Binance in an effort to identify links around a multi-million crypto scam in the region.
The government of Pakistan started a criminal investigation after receiving numerous complaints against an ongoing scam that involved misleading investors into sending funds from Binance wallets to unknown third-party wallets. According to local coverage, the FIA’s Cyber Crime Wing has issued an order of attendance to Binance Pakistan’s general manager Hamza Khan to identify the exchange’s link to “fraudulent online investment mobile applications.”
KARACHI: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has detected an online fraud of Rs100 billion using a cryptocurrency and issued notice to the local representative of Binance, @cz_binance @binance @BinanceHelpDesk @BinanceUS pic.twitter.com/3oukwzmDqh
— Innocent Pashteen✌ (@FighterDawar) January 7, 2022
“A relevant questionnaire has also been sent to Binance Headquarters Cayman Islands and Binance US to explain the same,” read the notice. The investment frauds in Pakistan were carried out by asking users to register on Binance and transfer funds to third-party wallets under the pretext of unrealistic returns. According to the FIA notice:
“These schemes benefit old clients at the cost of new clients and ultimately disappear when they have made substantial capital base worth billions of rupees.”
Based on the complaints raised by citizens, the Pakistani agency identified at least 11 fraudulent mobile apps that suddenly stopped working after successfully stealing the user’s funds. The apps identified by FIA are MCX, HFC, HTFOX, FXCOPY, OKIMINI, BB001, AVG86C, BX66, UG, TASKTOK and 91fp.
In addition to directing users to sign up on Binance to transfer the funds, the fraudsters added the victims on a Telegram group for providing “expert betting signals.” Each application hosted around 5,000 customers on average. The notice added:
“At least 26 suspect blockchain wallet addresses (Binance wallet address) have been identified where fraudulent amount may have been…
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