The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cyber Crime Wing (Sindh) said on Friday that it had issued a notice to an official from Binance, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, while investigating a multi-million dollar scam.
In a press release, the FIA said that the Cyber Crime Wing had issued an order of attendance to Hamza Khan, the general manager/growth analyst at Binance Pakistan, to explain his position on the company’s linkage to “fraudulent online investment mobile applications”.
“A relevant questionnaire has also been sent to [the] Binance Headquarters [in] Cayman Islands and Binance US to explain the same,” the handout said.
The agency said that many online investment frauds were operating in Pakistan on the pattern of Ponzi schemes where investors were promised high returns on their investment if they brought in more clients.
“These schemes benefit old clients at the cost of new clients and ultimately disappear when they have made [a] substantial capital base worth billions of rupees,” the handout said.
The FIA further added that on Dec 20, 2021, people from all over the country contacted the agency and said that at least 11 mobile apps had stopped working and had “defrauded people of billions of rupees”.
These apps were identified as MCX, HFC, HTFOX, FXCOPY, OKIMINI, BB001, AVG86C, BX66, UG, TASKTOK and 91fp.
“The modus operandi of these applications was to ask people for registration at Binance Crypto Exchange (Binance Holdings Limited) […] the next…
