Bitcoin Forum

Korean Police Raid Firm in Fraud ICO Probe of $130 Billion Shipwreck


South Korean police have raided the office of the company that claims to have discovered the shipwreck of a Russian pre-World War 1 battleship carrying $130 billion in gold bars and coins.

On Tuesday, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has raided the offices of Shinil Group, a cryptocurrency startup looking to sell treasure from a sunken ship it claims to have found, as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged fraud. The Seoul police department sent 27 investigators from its white collar crimes unit to search the offices of Shinil Group in Yeouido, western Seoul, as well as seven other locations to confiscate evidence, the Korea Herald reports.

As reported in mid-July, the cryptocurrency startup first claimed to have found the wreck of Russian warship Dmitrii Donskoi, a vessel that met its demise on the seabed during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Several historical records cite that the warship had been carrying over 5,500 boxes of gold bars and 200 tons of gold coins, worth an estimated $130 billion in the present day. Shinil backed those claims, claiming the ship held 150 trillion won ($130 billion) in gold on board. Shinil Marine claimed to have discovered its hull and wreckage near the island of Ulleungdo, east of the South Korean peninsula.
https://www.ccn.com/korean-police-raid-firm-in-fraud-ico-probe-of-130-billion-shipwreck/

What we do expect?
 
Government will normally interfere with these kind of transactions when a certain gold would be found it would be automatically be a property of the government itself.
They are soo dumb on making or tagging it on an ICO which it isnt really needed yet those gold bars would already be enough for them to have big or huge sums of money.
So what would be the purpose of those Shinil gold coins? just been backed by a gold from a wreckage.

Edit: Its all fake  ;D

Oh my ICO tokens backed up by the gold from a sunken historical warship :o I don't think they could get more creative than this haha ;D
I reckon the purpose of those Shinil Gold Coins is to collect enough capital in order to launch a recovery operation at the site of the sunken ship and extract the gold cargo. But it's not mentioned in the article whether or not they have even found that ship for real, and judging by the police investigation that might not be the case. I guess it's all fake and they have been lying to their investors. Clever scheme at that I have to say.

Governments should act every time such a scam appears.
There is no gold, there was no gold (even the Russians deny it) and the ship and its virtual gold was used in scams before.


As I said, there is no gold, the ICO is just a scheme to get real existent money from people.



Atlantis coin? Mu coin?  ;D Coins backed by dinosaur samples of ADN?

I just wonder how some people would even believe this kind of story in the first place and more surprising is how the same people would have been warned against some African prince scam would believe that their gold when harvested from the sea shore would just turn them to multi-millionaire forgetting that gold itself its a state property and the gold they are claiming they found is not in a forsaken land or planet that they can just lay claim to without having to face the forces of government that would have created a ton of war if the wreck managed to have been on international waters.

I think its better to commend the pro-activeness of the police body for taking the right action at this time even though they should done it earlier but the most important is ensuring that the funds that they stole should be returned to the people they collected it from and be made to face the full wrath of the law not for their country sake but for the sake of entire crypto market.

That's retarded.  Is that what they're really doing?  I didn't read the article, just what OP posted.  *Edit*:  Read it.  Yep, pretty stupid.

Anyhow, I don't quite get the connection between the recovered loot and the cryptocurrency aspect of this "startup".  I thought usually these types of companies have to get permission to recover a shipwreck and then contract with the recovery team.  They obviously don't stumble upon it by accident.  I'm not sure why the government is busting their asses on this one.

In either case, recovered treasure always gets hyped and marketed beyond anything rational.  Some coin collectors collect shipwrecked coins, but I think most realize that the coins aren't worth anywhere near what companies like this ask for them--and, the coins have to be cleaned before being sent out for grading, so a lot of collectors don't like that.  I see all of this as a marketing ploy for suckers.

that means this ship had sunk hundreds of years ago, it was impossible to find the wreck and carry the treasure. it's likely that the ship has been destroyed and has become a coral reef.

In this case, I have to support the government. This is a clear case of fraud. First of all, the sunken ship wasn't carrying any gold or silver. And secondly, the company is yet to locate the exact location of the ship-wreck.

If a certain group of people declares that they have found a shipwreck, it should be a case of a 'finders keepers' rule (at least that's what I believe in), however it would be extremely dumb to publicize your discovery and create a 'startup' out of it since many would surely seek for the treasure themselves. This is an outright case of fraud wherein the group just want monetary gains and public deception was the best way to get the funds out of gullible people. ICO operators such as this one think that they can game the system for too long when in fact the government are already doing preventive measures for such scenarios to happen.

Just get the treasure if there really is one (which I'm sure there aren't) and be done with it.

Actually there is one guy in the comment section of the crypto news site saying jokingly that he wanted to run a $130Billion ICO backed by kimchi. Any investors interested in Kimchi Coin? Cracked me up  ;D
I think it's possible that the sunken Russian warship really exists and might have been loaded with gold, but I have serious doubts that the Koreans have found the exact location of the wreckage. I know that warships have been used to transport spoils of war during World War I&II  so it makes sense from a historical perspective for such an incident to have occurred in the Russo-Japanese War earlier. However I am inclined to believe they are using this story as bait for gullible and greedy investors blinded by the promised gold riches.

Let's just say it is possible...
1 kg of gold is worth 38,957$  so let's just say 40k$.
That means 130 billion would be something around 3250 tons of gold.

Now, Dmitrii Donskoi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Dmitrii_Donskoi) was a frigate with just a little over 5500 tons displacement....
Not only that, but when she has sunk the ship was alone, with no escort, no nothing and the ship came from the Cape of Good Hope through the straight of Tsushima and was heading for Vladivostok...
Why would you send 3000 tons of gold via this way when you could have simply moved it by land?
And furthermore, why even send that gold from Europe to the Far-East???

It has become a trend and an easy way to accumulate capital just by ICO'ing everything.

I am seriously waiting for the first country to initiate an ICO to start a war with another country. In a way it has already happened with Venezuela's PetroCoin, but with (for the public) less dubious motives. Or what about countries trying to ICO the Moon, or Mars? It might sound ridiculous right now, but it's only a matter of time before it really happens.

Crypto didn't only show the people how much power they can obtain and maintain, but that also applies to governments. The same fraud that people are involved in right now, will be replicated by governments on a larger scale pretty soon.

news looks very fake but it is expected behavior of all government :D

The demand is there so it won't take much to make dumb money believe there is something to gain here. If they invest in the worst ever ICO projects without thinking, they will definitely not skip this one.

I am strongly of believe that the problem isn't these ICO's, but the continuously increasing demand from dumb money. It's impossible to combat this by having stricter regulations considering that people will take the risk anyway.

If similar scams in the legacy industries managed to remain relevant for decades, these ICO scams will follow the same path, especially with how you can decentralize the entire ICO process.

An ICO for gold from a shipwreck is not enough reason to start a cryptocurrency project that will last form a long time, and it will really be questionable with scamming potential investors. Only stupid people would believe and invest in such fraudulent activities and it is a good thing that the Korean government put these people behind bars for doing such malicious activities.

If that happens then it is really complicated and difficult for the market. To lose so much money and do not know where it is. Hope for government intervention needs to clarify this, for transparency. Help the community not lose and minimize the risk.