Recently the case of a fraudulent initiative that left several users without their funds and left a very particular message for them has been registered.
The scam was abuncio like an Initial Offer of Currency (ICO) called Prodeum and offered to implement the blockchain technology of Ethereum to revolutionize the supply chain of the industry of fruits and vegetables. Once collected the funds of some users, the official page stopped working and went on to show just a message with the word "penis" for everyone who visited the site. Currently the page is not working.
The objective, according to the alleged company, was to be fulfilled by a price search system printed in the unique code called "PLU", which usually has four or five digits and is printed on a label to identify the foods according to their variety and size.
Your white paper was removed from the Google Docs page, but affected users managed to recover it and move it to a new address. In it you can consult the roadmap of the project, which describes how the launch of the initiative was made in the month of July last year and the Initial Currency Offer began in the month of January with "tokens created on the Ethereum platform. and private tokens for institutional use. "
It affirmed to finish in the month of March and to realize the first tests with the code PLU in the month of April. The tokens would be called PIIT and the ICO WatchList entry indicates that it was completed by 22%. The company, according to the information disclosed, was based in Lithuania.
Likewise, through one of the communications that at the time of writing had not been removed from the web, you can read how the fraudulent collection sought to capture the consumer audience of organic products:
The goal of Prodeum is to guarantee consumers that the products they buy can be trusted without any doubt. If your fruit was exposed to pesticides, would not you like to have that information available?
When consumers have access to the story behind their product, it builds trust between them and the distributor. This is beneficial and useful for smaller distributors who aspire to have a place in the current market.
The monitoring of the product in the chain of blocks streamlines the process of growth for the consumer. Obtaining fruits and vegetables for the consumer will be easier than ever with an almost zero risk of errors or inaccuracies.
*** Prodeum ***
The most important members of the team behind the Prodeum scam were identified as Petar Jandric, who called himself the developer of ethereum, Rokas Vedluga as product manager and Darius Rugevicius, leading engineer and strategist. The latter disclosed a message through its Linkedin network in which he claims not to have any kind of relationship with Prodeum:
Yesterday I became a victim of identity theft. My name was used as a tool to attract investments to a project with which I have no relationship nor have I heard it before. I would like to send my condolences to all the investors that have participated in the project called Prodeum. I will do everything possible to find and bring the people behind this violent act to justice. This event once again demonstrates how fragile our industry is and how important it is to conduct a due diligence process before making an investment decision.
*** Darius Rugevicius
Partner, Connect Capital ***
The community denounced the fraud through networks such as twitter, where the word games in relation to the word left by the scammers in their place did not wait.
Similarly, some users speculated that the owners of the company paid young people from the Fiverr platform to write words on their bodies with a campaign to promote this ICO and they made it known on Twitter:
This is one of the events that confirm the reasons that have led authorities around the world to distrust the ICO. Yesterday, the members of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC) stopped a fraudulent ICO offered by the company AriseBank, which promoted the creation of a "decentralized bank". The measure was taken because the offer presented the usual characteristics of a fraudulent scheme and was not registered as an offer of securities before th commission.