SFO Arrests The Two Basis Markets Founders for $28M Crypto Scandal
- The SFO arrested two suspects connected to the $28M collapse of Basis Markets.
- Investigations revealed that the founders used questionable identities and also lied about their expertise to lure investors.
The latest news, according to the Serious Fraud Office, has reported that two suspects have been arrested and taken into custody as part of the investigations into the collapse of Basis Markets, a crypto project that raised a large amount of money from investors before finally vanishing.
According to the SFO, this arrest and investigation is a part of the agency’s (that is, the SFO) first major attempt to look into a large-scale crypto-based crime. This just explains that the organization is now becoming more active in the crypto space.
SFO Celebrates First Large-Scale Crypto Fraud Crackdown
The officials carried out the operation successfully after conducting serious searches in two different areas of England: one location in Herne Hill in south London and the other site in Bradford in West Yorkshire. The two men, one of whom is in his thirties and the other in his forties, are now being held on suspicion of financial deception and the movement of illegally obtained funds.
The leader of the SFO, Nick Ephgrave, explained that these arrests show the agency’s improving ability to understand what crypto is and also track activities connected to cryptocurrency. He also mentioned that the SFO is very committed to going after people who try to use cryptocurrency and all the opportunities it possesses to mislead or steal from the public. At this stage, no charges have been formally announced, but the official inquiry is continuing.
Red Flags That Were Noticed Before Basis Markets Collapse
Prior to now, Crypto Sleuth had carried out an investigation that properly explained how the Basis Markets operated before they finally crashed. According to them, they noticed that there were problems within the Basis Markets. They discovered that the people behind the project made use of unclear or questionable identities, and they also made claims about their experience that did not seem genuine.
During the time when the platform operated, the founders described themselves as experts with decades of combined background in fields like software building, traditional finance, and blockchain development, yet the investigators could not find any evidence that supported these statements.
Basis Markets promoted itself as a different type of decentralized trading platform. It advertised itself as a platform that could help generate steady profits through complex strategies that are normally used by large institutions.
Also Read: Samourai Wallet Founders Combined 9-Year Prison Sentence
To convince and gather money from the public, the team launched a special NFT membership sale in late 2021 and told buyers they would receive a share of whatever earnings they would make in the future. Soon after that, the team also went on to introduce a crypto token and explain that it would offer voting rights and access to additional profit-based rewards.
These two fundraising efforts gathered about twenty-eight million dollars from different innocent investors around the world. However, during the investigations, it was revealed that a very huge part of that whole amount of money went into the personal accounts that belonged to the two founders instead of being used for the project.
Also Read: 21Shares Adds AAVE, ADA, LINK, DOT on Nasdaq With New Crypto
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