KukaXoco Finance - BITCOIN/BITCON CRIMES

Do Kwon, who created the Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies that collapsed in 2022, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud. He agreed to forfeit more than $19 million in proceeds from his crypto dealings. In May 2022, Luna and TerraUSD collapsed, tanking the price of Bitcoin and accelerating the loss of $300 billion in value across the crypto economy.

Money launderers received at least $82 billion in cryptocurrencies last year, up sharply from $10 billion in 2020, in part by fast growth among money laundering networks controlled by Chinese-speaking people, blockchain researchers said on Tuesday.

Chaos in bitcoin/[bitcon] treasury land: rebellions, mass sales and one big monopoly. Many of these bitcoin treasury ventures/[scams] now sit on billions in unrealised losses as bitcoin's price has sunk nearly 50% from its October 2025 high, a loss of about $75 billion.

The crash of the Luna stablecoin in May 2021 led to cryptocurrency (and related losses) of $45 billion immediately after the crash.

The cryptocurrency industry's $28 billion in 'dirty money'. As Trump has championed cryptocurencies and the industry has gone mainstream, funds from scammers and other criminal groups have flowed onto major cryptocurrency exchanges. At least $28 billion tied to illicit activity has flowed into cryptocurrency exchanges over the last two years.

The Justice Department seizes $15 billion worth of bitcoin from Chen Zhi (who is in hiding) and his company, Prince Holding Group, alleging the money was the result of trafficking laborers and forcing them to work in compounds across Cambodia, often under the threat of violence. While there, the laborers contacted individuals through messaging or social media applications and persuaded them to transfer cryptocurrency to specific accounts by promising the funds would be invested, a scam tactic known "pig butchering".

The federal district court for the Southern District of New York entered a consent order against FTX Trading and Alameda Research, requiring them to pay $12.7 billion in monetary relief to cryptocurrency victims, resolving litigation filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The order requires the entities to pay $8.7 billion in restitution and $4 billion in disgorgement.

According to new research released today by cryptocurrency-tracing firm Elliptic, a company called Xinbi Guarantee has since 2022 facilitated no less than $8.4 billion in transactions via its Telegram-based marketplace prior to Telegram's actions in recent days to remove Xinbo's accounts from the platform. Money stolen from scam victims likely represents the "vast majority" of that sum. Xinbi also did money laundering for North Korean hackers, stolen data, targeted harassment-for-hire, and even what appears to be sex trafficking.

A woman from Zhōngguó, Zhimin Qian, is convicted of international fraud in the United Kingdom, with police seizing $6.7 billion worth of bitcoin. Between 2014 and 2017 Qian led a large-scale scam in Zhōngguó which involved cheating more than 128,000 victims and storing the stolen funds in bitcoin assets.

FTC reaches settlement with cryptocurrency platform Celsius Network; charges former executives with duping consumers into transferring cryptocurrency into their platform and then squandering billions in user deposits. Celisus and affliates will pay a fine of $4.7 billion.

In May 2022, investors in Terraform Labs lost $40 billion when its stablecoin/bitcoin system crashed. Terraform, and its founder, Do Kwon, have just agreed to pay a fine of $4.5 billion to the SEC.

Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his rapper wife, Heather Morgan, 31, are accused of conspiring to wash the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were looted when a hacker breached the systems of virtual currency exchange Bitfinex, laundering roughly $4.5 billion in cryptocurrency stolen during a massive 2016 hack, federal prosecutors said.

Changpeng Zhao, the founder and chief executive of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, plans to step down and plead guilty to violating criminal USA anti-money laundering requirements, in a deal meant to allow the company to continue operating. Zhang will also pay fines totalling $4.3 billion, which includes amounts to settle civil allegations made by regulators.

Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of sham "bitcoin-killer" OneCoin, pleads guilty to $4 billion fraud. OneCoin was a dishonest multi-level marketing pyramid scheme in which network members received commissions when they managed to recruit people to buy OneCoin.

Genesis has launched a pair of lawsuits against its parent company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), and its CEO, Barry Silbert, accusing them of fraud, reckless mismanagement and siphoning more than a billion dollars in value from the now-bankrupt crypto lender. Genesis is seeking over $3.3 billion from DCG, Barry Silbert and affiliates in two lawsuits alleging fraud, insider enrichment and concealed transfers.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Friday expanded her lawsuit against Digital Currency Group and other cryptocurrency defendants, tripling the size of their alleged fraud scheme to more than $3 billion. James in October sued Digital Currency, its Genesis Global Capital unit, and Gemini Capital, the exchange run by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, originally for causing more than $1 billion in losses.

A United States federal court has entered an order against cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, that will see Binance pay $2.7 billion and Zhao pay $150 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The SEC charged Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with fraud, alleging that they orchestrated a multibillion dollar "crypto asset securities fraud", as part of its marketing the TerraUSD and Luna coins, which collapsed in May 2022.

Binance fired employees who flagged $1 billion moving illegally to sanctioned entities in Iran. Weeks after Trump pardoned Binance's founder, the company dismantled a probe and suspended the investigators. Binance denied that the inquiry ended or that staff were fired for the concerns.

Local law enforcement is hunting down about 14,000 illegal bitcoin mining operations in Malaysia, which they say have stolen around $1.1 billion in electricity over the last five years.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit against two purported cryptocurrency companies (AWS Mining and NovaTechFX) and their top promoters - Cynthia and Eddy Petion, a married couple and Christian preachers, for allegedly operating two consecutive pyramid schemes that predominantly targeted Haitian immigrants to the USA.

Tornado Cash developers Roman Semenov and Roman Storm have been charged with laundering more than $1 billion. Tornado Cash is a so-called 'mixer' a privacy service meant to obscure the trail of ownership for cryptocurrency that passes through it.

The Department of Justice has charged Jorge Figueira for allegedly laundering $1 billion in criminal funds, using USDT on the Tron blockchain to help him do so.

A $700 million bonanza for the vulture winners of cryptocurrency's collapse: lawyers. Bankruptcy lawyers and other corporate turnaround specialists have reaped major fees from the bankruptcies of five cryptocurrency companies, including FTX.

Cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global on Tuesday sued partner Gemini Trust (controlled by the Winklevoss brothers), seeking to recover more than $689 million that customers of the companies withdrew during a "run on the bank" that caused Genesis to collapse into bankruptcy.

Federal prosecutors criminally charged two men in connection with a sprawling cryptocurrency investment scheme that allegedly defrauded victims of more than $650 million.

The USA government seizes over $580 million in cryptocurrencies linked to scams in Southeast Asia.

Nishad Singh, a co-founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has pleaded guilty to US federal fraud and conspiracy charges. He agreed to forfeit the proceeds of his actions, including a $543 million from Alameda Research (FTX's sibling hedge fund).

Iurii Gugnin is accused of using stablecoin transactions and falsified documents linked to sanctioned banks in Rossiya to launder $500 million.

Cryptocurrency criminals laundered $540 million by using a cross-blockchain service called RenBridge. Cross-chain bridges are used to send digital assets across blockchains, bypassing a centralized service that can trace transactions. "They are effectively ungoverned, and so very vulnerable to hacks, or to being used in crimes like money laundering."

Debtors for the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX have said that around $413 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from the company through "unauthorized transfers".

Christopher Alexander Delgado, CEO of an company in Orlando, Florida, is arrested in connection with alleged $328,000,000 Ponzi scheme. He reportedly persuaded victims to invest large amounts of money by falsely claiming they would earn monthly returns from cryptocurrency "liquidity pools".

DMM Bitcoin, an incompetently run cryptocurrency exchange in Nihon, confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million.

The SEC has charged 11 individuals with creating and promoting a fraudulent platform that operated as a global cryptocurrency pyramid and Ponzi scheme. The platform in question, Forsage raised more than $300 million from millions of individual investors worldwide since it was launched in January 2020.

Babel Finance, the troubled Asian crypto lender that abruptly halted client withdrawals last month, suffered heavy losses due to proprietary trading with customer funds, losing over $280 million in proprietary trading with customer funds.

25,000 investors fell for a $262 million cryptocurrency scam, many Black Americans in New York. Eddy Alexandre used his Haitian heritage and God to recruit investors for his sham investment platform.

WazirX, a leading Indian cryptocurrency exchange, halted withdrawals Thursday after a security breach it called a "force majeure event" (i.e., Latin for 'incompetence') resulted in the loss of $230 million, nearly half its reserves. The Mumbai-based firm said one of its multisig wallets had suffered a security breach.

The Justice Department seizes a record $225 million in cryptocurrencies tied to global 'pig butchering' scams. Victims were tricked into believing they were investing in legitimate crypto ventures, only to be scammed by criminal networks often operating overseas.

- CoinDesk, 22 May 2025

BitMEX, a cryptocurrencye exhange, is fined additional $100 million for violating the USA Bank Secrecy Act, bringing total penalties paid to $210 million, for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering systems.

Police in Hong Kong have charged 16 individuals, including influencer Joseph Lam Chok, with fraudulently or recklessly inducing others to invest in virtual assets, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering, in the HK$1.6 billion (US$205.8 million) JPEX cryptocurrency scandal - the largest alleged financial fraud to date in Hong Kong.

Police in Hong Kong have arrested more than 70 people in connection with the HK$1.6 billion (about US $200 million) JPEX cryptocurrency scandal and frozen nearly HK$230 million (US$29.37 million) in assets so far.

Decentralized lending protocol Euler Finance incompetently loses $197 million after being hacked for not having sufficient security

Blockchain company ARA Holdings sold 15,111 bitcoin from its treasury for about $1.1 billion, to repurchase $1 billion of its convertible notes. Most likely this included 4,267 bitcoins that it bought around $110,000 now worth about $45,000 less.

Despite being well-funded, recently raising $22 million, the incompetence of cryptocurrency software firm Nomad resulted in a $190 million theft of its users' cryptocurrencies.

Embattled cryptocurrency lender Hodlnaut downplayed its exposure to the collapsed digital-token ecosystem created by fugitive Do Kwon yet suffered a near $190 million loss from the wipeout.

Two men are arrested in Hong Kong for using stablecoins to launder $146.5 million to smuggle cash out of Hong Kong.

Jump Trading Group was a big winner during the last cryptocurrency bull market. Now, a unit of the high-speed trading giant has agreed to pay $123 million to settle an investigation stemming from its dealings with disgraced crypto tycoon Do Kwon.

Cryptocurrency trader Avi Eisenberg is convicted of fraud in $110 million theft using the Mango Markets platform. In October 2022, he made a series of trades to intentionally boost the price of Mango Markets' native token, MNGO, as well as the price of futures contracts. He used the inflated futures holdings as collateral to borrow other cryptocurrencies on the platform, then quickly withdrew those assets and walked away from his collateral.

President Javier Milei of Argentina promotes a memecoin that then crashes 95% in an apparent $107 million scam.

The law firm Sullivan & Cromwell has somehow obtained over $100 million in legal fees from the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a bankruptcy it helped cause while Sullivan was ousted counsel for the pre-bankrupt FTC.

The cryptocurrency world - get ready for the biggest 'rug pull' of all time (a coordinated effort by a concentrated group to sell their crypto holdings at a price they are content with, leaving the foolish masses with nothing but losses. It is transfer of wealth from a large to a small group. One recent and very visible example was Trump's and Melania's meme coins - investors lost $100 million after early investors quickly cashed out).

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged crypto platform Unicoin and three of its executives, alleging they made false and misleading statements about its crypto assets that raised $100 million from investors.

Executives at Airbit Club, a cryptocurrency mining and trading platform, plead guilty to fraud in $100 million cryptocurrency "Ponzi scheme", and ordered to forfeit all proceeds worth about $100 million.

A trader says code allowed him to withdraw millions from a crypto exchange. Prosecutors say he violated the law. Mango Markets all but collapsed after Avraham Eisenberg withdrew more than $100 million from the platform, authorities said. His lawyer said he "looks forward to his day in court".

SEC files emergency action against BKCoin, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, for running a $100 million "Ponzi-like" fraud.

BlockFi, a cryptocurrency firm, reaches a $100 million settlement with the SEC for failing to register loan products.

BitMEX to pay $100 million to resolve regulator's lawsuit over cryptocurrency derivatives trading. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission had sued the cryptocurrency exchange over its derivatives offerings.

Four executives at Filecoin mining firm Shenzhen Shikongyun Technology were slapped with criminal charges in Guangxi for running a pyramid scheme. Enticed with high returns, nearly 100,000 people signed up with the firm's scheme, which raked in more than US$83 million, local prosecutors said.

Andean Medjedovic, a 22-year-old math prodigy in Canada, is charged with $65,000,000 worth of cryptocurrency heists. He was reportedly discovered through chatting on Discord with a company they allegedly stole from.

Global cryptocurrency exchange CoinEX allows hackers to steal $53 million worth of cryptocurrency from its customers.

A federal grand jury indictment and criminal complaint unsealed today charge 16 defendants who allegedly developed and deployed the DanaBot malware which a Russia-based cybercrime organization controlled and deployed, infecting more than 300,000 victim computers around the world, facilitated fraud and ransomware, and caused at least $50 million in damage, using cryptocurrencies to profit from their crimes (and by stealing people's cryptocurrency wallets).

In San Pedro, Argentina, 16,000 people, a fifth of the population, signed up for a cryptocurrency exchange where everyone won. Until they didn't, losing a lot of money to pump-and-dump schemes using meme coins, the scam run by a woman called "La China". All of the trades on one exchange, RainbowEx, were fake - the nightly swaps of Tether for memecoins through the crypto exchange were pure show - a pur Ponzi scheme. Over $50 million was stolen.

The USA Justice Department charges Roger Ver with tax fraud. The early cryptocurrency investor, often called 'Bitcoin Jesus' faces extradition to the USA after being charged with evading nearly $50 million in taxes.

Coinbase's stock jumps 5% after it agrees to pay a $50 million fine after financial regulators in New York that it let customers open accounts without conducting sufficient background checks.

when trying to swap $50 million of USDT for AAVE

Paxos Trust reached a $48.5 million settlement to resolve New York charges the virtual currency company failed to police illegal activity related to cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Another cryptocurrency criminal. Alex Mashinsky, founder and CEO of Celsius has pled guilty to one count of commodities fraud and one count of securities fraud, which combined carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Mashinsky misled Celsius customers about the company's profitability and the security of their investments, while secretly manipulating the price of the company's proprietary token, CEL, for personal gain. As part of his guilty plea, Mashinsky agreed to forfeit over $48 million in proceeds from the schemes.

Shan Hanes, the former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas, is charged with stealing $47 million to buy cryptocurrencies.

John Daghita, a former USA government contractor, is arreste for stealing $46 million in cryptocurrency from the USA Marshalls Service.

The Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic laundered $45 million of bitcoin for the now-imprisoned Tomas Jirikovsky, the mastermind behind Sheep Marketplace and Nucleus, notorious cryptocurrency platforms where users bought illegal drugs, weapons, and other contraband.

Cryptocurrency lender Nexo is fined $45 million as crackdown widens. Nexo had offered interest to its customers, which the SEC ruled is a financial instrument that Nexo had failed to properly register.

Well known blockchain sleuth, ZachXBT, alleges a custody CEO's son (John Dahita) stole tens of millions in crypto from USA government-linked wallets tied to Bitfinex funds, exposing systemic custody risks.

DoJ alleges Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of the now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency scam, paid over $40 million to bribe at least one official in China.

Prime Trust, an idiot cryptocurrency startup offering secure crypto services, files for bankruptcy after losing the password to a physical cryptocurrency wallet it controls with $38.9 million of corporate funds.

The SEC announces that the Digital Currency Group, and Soichoro "Michael" Moro, the former CEO of DCG's now-defunct subsidiary, Genesis Global Capital LLC, will pay a combined $38.5 million in civil penalties to settle charges for misleading investors about s financial condition.

An Australian court has shut down NGS Crypto, a digital asset company that marketed itself as a crypto-based retirement solution, after liquidators recovered just $4.4 million of an estimated $40 million invested by the public.

Nevin Shetty, a former company CFO is indicted for using $35 million in company cash to invest in cryptocurrency venture.

Police in Brazil dismantled a sophisticated criminal syndicate that laundered over R$164 million (approximately USD 32 million) through cryptocurrency.

Tom Brady lost $30 million after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Brady was an 'ambassador' for the exchange and is now involved in a lawsuit.

Robinhood's cryptocurrency division was fined $30 million for "significant failures" in areas of anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.

The Treasury Department fined a Washington-based cryptocurrency trading platform, Bittrex, $29.3 million for violating multiple sanctions, including those prohibiting U.S. companies from doing business with individuals operating in Iran, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The UK's Serious Fraud Office said on it was investigating the collapse of $28 million cryptocurrency scheme organized by Basis Markets, urging investors to step after two men were arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. Basis Markets had raised cash from two public fundraisers in late 2021 by selling non-fungible tokens and used the funds to create a cryptocurrency hedge fund.

Cryptocurrency token TRU plunges 100% after reports of an alleged hack that stolen $26.4 million of ether tokens used in TRU transactions.

Another cryptocurrency platform, Step Finance, [imcompetently allows itself to] get hacked as cryptocurrency market plunges. Step Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) dashboard, reported that several of its treasury and fee wallets had been compromised. On-chain data indicates roughly 261,854 Solana (SOL), worth about $26 million at current prices, were unstaked and moved during the breach.

Two brothers (Anton and James Peraire-Bueno), graduates of MIT, allegedly Googled "money laundering" before stealing $25 million in cryptocurrencies using crypto-bots.

Cryptocurrency lender Celsius settles with preferred shareholders for $25 million over mining assets claims.

Michael Alan Stollery, the CEO of blockchain company Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS), has pleaded guilty to securities fraud over a $21 million cryptocurrency scam.

Korean crypto startup Uprise lost virtually all of its client funds by shorting luna (LUNA) during its price crash and getting caught on the bounces. Uprise got liquidated trading LUNA futures and lost $20 million in client funds. The loss represents 99% of the funds custodied by clients on the platform.

A businessman in Zhōngguó was convicted of embezzling $19.5 million from his employer, who laundered the money using ... cryptocurrencies.

Así operaba red que estafaba con criptomonedas desde Medellín y que tumbó más de 71.000 millones de pesos (US $19 million) en tres países.

A man in Brooklyn, New York, is accused of stealing $16 million in cryptocurrencies from victims. From a house in Sheepshead Bay, Ronald Spektor bilked about 100 people across the USA, according to prosecutors. Then, he went online to brag.

Actor and singer Nick Cannon helped launched a memecoin as a promoter, the WILDNOUT coin, in March 2025. It hit a market capitalization of $10 million within hours. This week, its market cap was about $67,000. A $10 million scam.

The SEC has settled its fraud case against cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun (based in Zhōngguó) with one of Sun's companies paying a $10 million penalty.

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex to pay $7.6 million to settle probe into sanctions violations. The agreement follows a $10 million settlement the trading platform agreed to pay in 2021 as a result of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex to pay $10 million penalty to settle SEC probe. Employees at the unregulated cryptocurrency exchange had said they wanted to be aggressive about trading digital assets, even though their legal status was uncertain.

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex to pay $7.6 million to settle probe into sanctions violations. The agreement follows a $10 million settlement the trading platform agreed to pay in 2021 as a result of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

Coinbase to pay $6.5 million to settle CFTC investigation over trading. The cryptocurrency exchange operator settles civil case without admitting or denying fault.

Nvidia's stock drop 4.5% after announcing that it will pay a $5.5 million fine to the SEC "for inadequate disclosures concerning the impact of crypto-mining on the company's gaming business".

Leading Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein was rearrested after prosecutors told a judge he represented a "serious risk of flight" from his criminal federal tax evasion case. Goldstein failed to disclose two cryptocurrency wallets through which he received more than $8 million, and sent more than $6 million over the past week, Maryland federal prosecutors said. The SCOTUSblog publisher was indicted in January on charges alleging he failed to declare millions of dollars in poker winnings and used his law s money to pay his gambling debts. Goldstein, who has argued before the Supreme Court more than nearly any other attorney in private practice in modern times, is accused of willfully failing to pay more than $5.3 million in taxes.

GAW Miners and ZenMiner agreed to pay $3.5 million to resolve claims they misled investors about profits from their virtual currency mining operations.

A Christian pastor and his wife in Denver are charged with a $3.4 million cryptocurrency scam, and pathetically tried to justify the crime by the pastor saying that "God told him" to defraud his parionishers and spent the money on vacations.

Binance fined in Netherlands for lack of registration. The $3.4 million fine by the Dutch central bank is a small financial penalty for the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, but underscores the company's friction with regulators.

Cryptocurrencies tumble after Kraken agrees to shutters its cryptocurrency-staking operations to settle SEC charges. Staking is technique of pledging crypto tokens to run proof-of-stake blockchains such as Ethereum.

Retail trading platform eToro will stop offering nearly all cryptocurrencies to its customers as part of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulator said on Thursday. eToro also agreed to pay a penalty of $1.5 million to settle charges that it operated as an unregistered broker and unregistered clearing agency in connection with its cryptocurrency offerings.

Former Coinbase employee charged after netting $1.5 million from trading ahead of cryptocurrency listing announcements.

CFTC fines cryptocurrency betting service Polymarket $1.4 million, orders shutdown of three markets.

Former Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce settles with SEC over crypto violations. Pierce will pay a $1.1 million penalty and disgorge about $240,000. He allegedly unlawfully touted and made misleading statements about a "crypto asset security".

A Christian pastor for an online church, based in Colorado, is accused of pocketing $1.3 million through a cryptocurrency fraud scheme told followers in a video statement that the Lord told him to do it.

An early Texas Bitcoin investor was ordered to surrender his cryptocurrency and other wallet private keys and access codes as part of a restraining order after being sentenced in December to two years in prison for tax fraud, for which he has to pay $1.1 million in restitution.

Police in Thailand have arrested a self-styled cryptocurrency coach and her accomplice accused of luring the public into investing in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme, with promises of high returns but blocked withdrawals, causing losses of about 30 million baht (about $920,000)

A mysterious exploit is draining the wallets of influential cryptocurrency community members. "I just had $650,000 drained/stolen". Somehow hackers are accessing the passwords of bitcoin holder's Axiom wallets.

Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin pays the CFTC $500,000 to end a civil case that it ran an unregistered offshore platform that illegally let US residents trade.