They accused the youth group of defrauding $600,000 with a game similar to Pokemon

Over half a million dollars in crypto assetsthis is the figure for which four young people from Rosario have been charged for alleged scams generated via an online game similar to the one known Pokemon.

The defendants were identified as Manuel Angel B.; Gianluca P; Ramiro S. and Gianfranco S.and so well they were released After being detained for six days, they must comply with a series of rules of conduct such as the prohibition to leave the territory and the establishment of a real patrimonial security, judged the judge Nicolas Foppiani.

Mariano Riosthe investigating prosecutor, accused the four youths of withholding $2.6 million from the cash pool of an online game called master of beastsby sending the money invested by players to their personal virtual wallets.

As the prosecutor explains, the defendants created this online game which is similar in its dynamics to the Pokémon game, in which players had to buy “beasts” and could invest in a “gym” and develop the characters.

Among other things, “they generated a banner for the pre-sale of the ‘beasts’ that would be needed to play”, while “to train and improve the characters they were selling Non-fungible tokens (NFT)“, reports the Parquet (MPA).

NFTs are unique digital assets that are encrypted and represent something unique, while not being identically interchangeable, the prosecutor’s office explained. “That differentiates them from cryptocurrencies, but they’re essentially two versions of the same technology,” Ríos said.

The dynamics of the game made it possible to acquire gymnasiums and train characters, which generated value for players. “These could buy and sell their ‘beasts’, and in the game mode they presented in the tactics, these ‘beasts’ could be upgraded by users, adding economic value as well,” said the charge.

In this way, in addition to the fun aspect, the player has generated an investment “to then resell it and obtain a profit” in cryptocurrency.

On December 7, 2021, the creators emptied all funds from the liquidity pool, which reached 2,610,312 US dollars, “transferring to 15 accounts” of virtual wallets. After this fact, the platform Binance released the identities of the game owners, so they decided to return some of the money. “However, by withdrawing all funds and deleting all information about the game, they caused the value of the token (coin) to drop to zero and the money invested was never returned”said prosecutor Ríos, who considered it possible $600,000 scam.

Manuel Angel B.; Gianluca P; Ramiro S. and Gianfranco S. have been detained since last Thursday after a series of raids carried out in Rosario and other nearby towns in which firearms and electronic items were also removed, until this Tuesday, date at which the imputed hearing took place.

Justice had been tracking this activity since last year when the situation arose from a case based in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), sources in the case said.

According to BTR Consulting, the crypto world has been quite a breeding ground for all sorts of scams, as it takes a lot of education on various topics. In this sense, he said that the possibility of profiting at the expense of users is quite large.

It should be noted that although cryptocurrencies are mainly used legally, they have also become attractive treasures for criminals, who are quite creative when it comes to setting all sorts of traps for unsuspecting owners. In this sense, the consultant distinguished different types of scams used in the crypto world.

– Cloned sites: The scammers prepare a website identical to the legitimate website, which can range from an exchange house or an online wallet to the official page of an initial coin offering (ICO), and the spread through various means including emails, chats and even Google Ads which may be confused with the original page in search results.

– Fake support teams: Sometimes scammers skip the step of creating the fake site and just pretend to be the support team of a legitimate platform, including exchanges and wallets. “In this way, the only thing they imitate are the company’s logos and email address in the message they send to their victims to report any alleged inconvenience and request their private information for the false purpose. to help them,” the firm explained. . .

– Gifts in social networks: it is quite similar to the Phishing, since it involves using impostor accounts on the networks to deceive users. According to the consultancy specializing in fraud prevention analysis, the difference is that the funds are requested directly through these accounts instead of just confidential information, under the promise that a much higher reward will be received afterwards. the transfer of a rather small percentage in comparison.

With information from the Telam Agency.

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