{"id":21159,"date":"2025-02-14T15:23:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T13:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/hashflare-founders-admit-guilt-in-577-million-crypto-pyramid-scheme\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T13:23:39","slug":"hashflare-founders-admit-guilt-in-577-million-crypto-pyramid-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/hashflare-founders-admit-guilt-in-577-million-crypto-pyramid-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"HashFlare Founders Admit Guilt in $577 Million Crypto Pyramid Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The founders of the cloud mining service HashFlare, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Tur\u00f5gin, have admitted to orchestrating a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. U.S. authorities will confiscate assets from them valued at over $400 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Two Estonian Nationals plead guilty in $577M cryptocurrency fraud scheme \u2014 Scheme victimized hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and abroad <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/blfJy3wytw\">https:\/\/t.co\/blfJy3wytw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WDWAnews (@WDWAnews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WDWAnews\/status\/1890187797291811058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Western District of Washington, the defendants, Estonian nationals, offered clients contracts granting them a share of the purportedly mined cryptocurrency by HashFlare.<\/p>\n<p>From 2015 to 2019, sales exceeded $577 million. However, the company lacked sufficient computing power to fulfill its promises. The service&#8217;s web panel displayed fictitious data on users&#8217; mining profits.<\/p>\n<p>Potapenko and Tur\u00f5gin used proceeds from the fraudulent scheme to purchase real estate and luxury cars, as well as to maintain investment and cryptocurrency accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Tallinn police arrested the founders of HashFlare in November 2022 at the request of the <span data-descr=\"Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States\" class=\"old_tooltip\">FBI<\/span>. They were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering. In January 2024, Estonian authorities decided to extradite Potapenko and Tur\u00f5gin to the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>The founders of HashFlare pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud. Sentencing is scheduled for March 8, with each facing up to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>The seized assets of $400 million will be used to compensate victims of the fraudulent scheme. U.S. authorities will disclose further details of the process later.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2024, Turkish authorities <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/turkish-authorities-apprehend-organiser-of-4-billion-crypto-scam\">detained<\/a> one of the suspects in organizing the $4 billion OmegaPro crypto pyramid. The scam is allegedly linked to OneCoin \u2014 one of the largest frauds in the industry&#8217;s history with similar damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The founders of the cloud mining service HashFlare, Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Tur\u00f5gin, have admitted to orchestrating a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. U.S. authorities will confiscate assets from them valued at over $400 million. Two Estonian Nationals plead guilty in $577M cryptocurrency fraud scheme \u2014 Scheme victimized hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1162,586,1163,1246,26],"class_list":["post-21159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-court-cases","tag-hashflare","tag-ponzi-schemes","tag-scammers","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"82","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}