Investor accuses ‘blockchain taxi’ founders of embezzlement
The team behind the startup International Taxi Company (ITC), which is developing a blockchain taxi service, is suspected of an exit scam. ForkLog was told this by an anonymous investor in the company.
The investor said that a group led by marketing director Lyubov Egupova deceived her, promising that investors would be able to exit the company at any time and recover their funds in full. She bought 937 ITC tokens for $500.
“The money was handed over in cash. After that the amount was credited to a Stellar wallet, and ITC tokens flowed into it. But the wallet was immediately blocked, on the grounds that the participants were ‘inexperienced’ and could ‘drain’ the tokens for pennies.”
The company’s office was located in Moscow’s business centre ‘Europe’. After raising funds, the leaders gave vague and unclear information about the project’s development, and then stopped responding, the ForkLog interlocutor noted.
“At first they tried to meet in person in the Europe business centre, then communication was only by phone. But in May 2019 the entire team vacated the business centre and contact was lost,” the injured party said.
She added that all meetings were arranged so that unfamiliar new ‘partners’ could not talk. Each was assigned its own ‘leader’:
“A certain chaos was created, not allowing questions on the matter to be asked and receiving concrete answers.”
The injured party learned of the project in 2018 after promotional videos appeared on YouTube and Instagram.
In one video featuring businessman Ismagil Shangareev, ITC tokens were allegedly gifted to him to participate in the project. According to the media, Shangareev long resided in the UAE, where his подозревают в мошенничестве with investment real estate.
The video also features Lyubov Egupova, whom the injured investor named the scheme’s leader.
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The injured party will file a report with law enforcement. She is seeking other investors in the project:
“This should be a collective appeal, as the amount I invested is small. And the scammers should be punished, because there are likely many victims with larger investments,” she added.
ForkLog sought comment from the company’s representatives, but did not receive an immediate response.
In mid-2018 ITC launched an ICO aimed at raising $79.2 million. The results of the crowdsale were not published.
It is known that after the closed presale for major investors the company sold 28.6% of the total 200 million token supply at the time.
The project was slated to launch in early 2019, but it never materialised.
As of writing, the total number of ITC tokens issued on the Stellar blockchain stands at 922 млрд монет.
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