The internet as valuable and helpful as it is, can also be a very dangerous platform if unsuspecting individuals are not careful. Every day there are unscrupulous lurking all over the internet and looking for prey. This is why people are advised to tread with caution when carrying out operations on the internet, and extra security measures are necessary to ensure that transactions and operations carried out on the internet are safe and secure.
Image Source : https://pixabay.com
The cryptocurrency is a trend that is taking over the whole world, through the internet, and as secure as the underlying blockchain technology is, many people have lost huge sums of money due to cryptocurrency theft, as a result of negligence, carelessness, or fraud. The decentralization of the blockchain technology makes it difficult for it to be regulated, which has led to the creation of fraudulent ICOs over that have fraudulently made people lose huge sums of money.
One country that has been breathing down the necks of its citizens with respect to cryptocurrencies, is China. The Chinese government has stringent policies that do not favor the use of cryptocurrencies, and to this end, they are always on the lookout for irregular crypto activities. Recently, a digital currency project got brought down by the Chinese law enforcement, this cryptocurrency project got booked because by law enforcement because it was discovered that the project was fraudulently extorting investors’ money.
6 people were arrested for defrauding 3000 investors to the tune of $47 million through the supposed sale of digital currency they said was backed by a commodity. The 6 suspects created a company based in Shenzhen referred to as Pu’er (PEB)
According to the platform's website, it is indicating that owners of the token have the privilege to be in charge of a contract that represents the ownership of the specific amount of the Pu'er Tibetan tea they claimed they had in stock, and the Tibetan tea’s worth was claimed to have been in billions.
The site promised to offer a lot of things, and many of them seemed like they were too good to be true. According to the Chinese police, there was a manipulation of the secondary market which was responsible for the success made from attracting investors. The crackdown that happened yesterday did not come as a surprise to the firm, as they had been warned and fined by China's State Administration for Market Regulation, which was set up to ensure that the economic market experiences just and fair market competition.
The firm was fined $20 million by the authority for its false dissemination of information based on their advert claims that portrayed the firm as supposedly having large stockpiles of the Tibetan tea to support the token. This new arrest is one of many notable crackdowns on fraudulent cryptocurrency activities in China because the country’s law enforcement agencies have beefed up efforts to discourage illegal ICOs.
China is known for being very stringent when it comes to cryptocurrencies and will stop at nothing to ensure there are no irregularities.