Turkish authorities have busted a Ponzi scheme around the Memecoin DOGE.
In Turkey, the Dogecoin cryptocurrency was fraudulent. This is supposed to be the damage after tv100.com, a Turkish news site, amounted to over a billion Turkish liras. On August 27th, that’s about $ 120 million. The main suspect attracted investors with a Dogecoin mining system. He promised yield-seeking crypto investors picturesque profits and guaranteed everyone who pays Dogecoin into his system a return of 100 percent – within 40 days.
The accused ensnared potential investors with meetings in luxury locations, founded his own Telegram group and organized personal talks. Ultimately, he managed to cheat 1,500 investors out of their deposits. The whole thing is similar to the Ponzi or Snowball System fraud scheme. But even Ponzi did not promise his investors a return of 100 percent, with him it was “only” 50 percent return and that “only” in 45 days. The suspect allowed investors who wanted to see their money to withdraw dividends from the system.
After four months, the alleged perpetrator reportedly collected nearly 350 million Dogecoin from bona fide crypto investors. But after the fourth month, the main suspect blocked the system, investors no longer had access and could no longer deduct “dividends”. The insecure and confused Dogecoin mining system participants turned to a lawyer and the case ultimately ended up with the attorney general’s office. This imposed a travel ban on the accused and his lover, Gizem N.
Introducing Ecem Ashyrova, a victim of the Dogecoin mining scam. He told tv100.com:
I put four million DOGE into the mining system. At the moment I’m sitting on a loss of 12 million TL (Turkish Lira; about 1.43 million US dollars) (…).
Turkey: Cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin are popular
Crypto currencies are popular in Turkey – according to a French study, almost every fifth Turk is said to hold crypto currencies. On the other hand, other European countries compared only come in at nine percent, the USA at eight percent. According to the study, 45 percent of Turks also plan to invest in cryptocurrencies in the coming years. As is so often the case: where many people are interested in something, there are also people who want to take advantage of that interest and the search for returns. In the case of crypto-affine Turkey, there have already been major cases of fraud in the past. Investors should always be careful with promises of returns, especially if a 100 percent return is predicted in less than two months.