Fraud Under The Guise Of Crypto Investment, This Group Succeeded In Stealing Rp797 Billion From 20,000 Victims

JAKARTA – The act of scamming or fraud in the crypto world is increasingly widespread. Recently, the Japanese police in Aichi Prefecture managed to arrest four perpetrators, suspected of being the masterminds of the "Oz Project" which managed to deceive around 20,000 crypto investors with the lure of 2.5 times returns in 4 months.

The four perpetrators managed to steal money amounting to 55 million US dollars, equivalent to Rp. 797 billion from the victims. They were arrested on charges of crypto investment fraud through a project called “Project Oz”. The arrest occurred on Monday, July 12 last.

Investigators identified the four perpetrators, namely Shoji Ishida (59), Takuya Hashiyada (46), Yukihiro Yamashita (61), and Masamichi Toshima (52). Ishida was accused of being the mastermind of the Oz Project fraud scheme, as compiled by VOI from Bitcoin.com News.

The authorities explained that they started committing fraud four years ago. In their action, they also often hold crypto seminars in various cities in Japan.

The Oz Project group promised the funds of victims who invested in crypto would be traded using artificial intelligence (AI) automatically, which was not there.

Some time ago, fraudulent actions often occurred in cyberspace, especially on social media. Authorities managed to catch a crypto scammer posing as Elon Musk on Twitter last May. He managed to steal Rp28.57 billion from his victims.

Therefore, crypto investors are expected not to expose their crypto holdings through social media in order to avoid fraud or scamming that often takes victims by sending direct messages directly to users.