Media reports raid on Worldcoin warehouse in Kenya

Kenyan law enforcement officers conducted a raid on the warehouse of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin cryptocurrency project. According to KahawaTungu.

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Worldcoin announced the official launch on July 24. The project’s main product — the World ID protocol — is based on zero-knowledge proofs. It is a mobile tool that enables people to verify their identity via retina scan or a phone number.

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Earlier, Kenya’s Ministry of Interior restricted Worldcoin’s local operations in order to assess potential risks to public safety. This move opened the door to the start of an investigation.

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On August 5, police officers from an interagency task force seized documentation and devices that, according to them, stored the collected information.

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According to the statement, Worldcoin’s property was handed over to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations at its headquarters for analysis.

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The raid was conducted with the participation of the Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait. According to her, Tools for Humanity, Worldcoin’s parent company, did not disclose its true intentions at registration.

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The project opened the possibility of identity verification in a number of countries, including France, Japan, Germany, Spain and Indonesia. Worldcoin explained that it chose Kenya to launch the platform in Africa due to a boom in the tech sector and the presence of more than 4 million crypto traders.

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Users receive 25 tokens of WLD for biometric verification via the Orb device (about $51.5 at the time of writing). In July, Altman showed a long queue in Japan of those eager to register for WLD.

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Earlier, oversight authorities in the United Kingdom, France and Germany have already shown an interest in the project’s activities.