Serbian nationalist to be sued Over $70 Million Bitcoin Scam

[Walterhank]

"Serbian man Antonije Stojilkovic and his partners have allegedly defrauded crypto investors a lump sum of money. The money is totaling just above $70 Million. "

My question is that even if crypto is all about decentralization then how come centralized authorities indulge in it? I'm not saying that is good in some cases but there are other cases that can be bad, do you know what I mean? So, what are your thoughts?

_{Source
https://mycryptoparadise.com/serbian-nationalist-to-be-sued-over-70-million-bitcoin-scam/}

[aoluain]

What do you mean by centralised authorities?

I read the article and a lot of people got scammed on fake crypto trading and mining sites.

From the "investors" point of view, this should have been a warning

The platforms also offered an 80 percent average payout and a 20 percent refund on lost trade.

[Daniel91]

Fraud is a fraud, whether we're talking about fiat money, crypto, sugar, flour or anything else.
If someone cheats on me with a crypto, I also expect the person to be held criminally responsible for such a scam.
Why anything would be different?
Of course, in the case of crypto it is much more difficult to find the culprits but we see that it is not impossible.
There is no decentralisation for crime.

[Altcoinsintel]

Fraud is a fraud, whether we're talking about fiat money, crypto, sugar, flour or anything else.
If someone cheats on me with a crypto, I also expect the person to be held criminally responsible for such a scam.
Why anything would be different?
Of course, in the case of crypto it is much more difficult to find the culprits but we see that it is not impossible.
There is no decentralisation for crime.

Persecution of fraud requires regulation and funding. I don't know the exact state of cryptocurrency legislation in Serbia, however, in case there are no regulations there won't be persecution of this type of criminals either. What many don't understand is that without the government having a stream of income from a certain industry, it won't be able to spend taxes from the rest of the society that doesn't use cryptocurrencies.
Earlier last year in Russia, a person was kidnapped and forced to hand over the private keys of his Bitcoin wallet to the culprits. Because Bitcoin had no legal entity in Russia, judges decided the Bitcoin theft wasn't going to be given a verdict. They only judged the criminals for the case of kidnapping. Do you see what happens when there are no regulations? The Russian government a few months later passed a law regulating Bitcoin as an asset, so the above court verdict could be challenged again by the victim at a higher court.
So, if someone cheats you in crypto and your country hasn't regulated and made clear that Bitcoin is an asset, and in case no other crime has been committed, it will only fall under some kind of law of telecommunications scam but it probably won't be given a lot of attention from your regional authorities.
It is not very hard to find the culprits of Bitcoin theft or scams either, only in rare occasions this is impossible.

[irixo10]

When you defraud people, then you should get ready for whatever that comes from it and in as much as some people will escape others might not, and from the article they actually launched a lot of Bitcoin services which were of course not existing, thus meaning they were really out to scam as much people as possible, and when such case like this happens, it is hard going scout free because lots of reports will be made against them. Also, with this level of fraud, you don't really expect the law enforcement to stay mute, they have an obligation to protect their citizens and that's what happened. Decentralization never means people should go about defrauding others, moreover some of the services they offered were not decentralized services but they collected their payment in Bitcoin so that it wouldn't be traced. In the same way, of course there are cases which are bad, at the same time, there have been reports of many of this fraudsters who defrauded people through one scheme or the other who were also arrested.

[buwaytress]

It's a decentralized network, not a network only for decentralized entities. The whole point of it is that anyone can access and use it, there are no restrictions. That, literally, is the beauty of it. No sanctioned individuals, companies, organisations. Freedom to access with no censorship. Responsibility and sovereignty over your own funds, solely. Wonderful idea, wonderful implementation, isn't it?

[blockman]

My question is that even if crypto is all about decentralization then how come centralized authorities indulge in it? I'm not saying that is good in some cases but there are other cases that can be bad, do you know what I mean? So, what are your thoughts?

If they are offering an investment, they should be licensed and regulated by the SEC. The platform won't be that decentralized at all if they're offering securities because it has to be registered. You can compare this to the projects that were advertised by celebrities not knowing they've advertised a fraud ICO.
And later on, was chased and caught by the SEC.

[Kittygalore]

Fraud is a fraud, whether we're talking about fiat money, crypto, sugar, flour or anything else.
If someone cheats on me with a crypto, I also expect the person to be held criminally responsible for such a scam.
Why anything would be different?

The difference is that cryptocurrency is still under the bad side of many countries and authorities until this very moment because it gives the scammers new mode of funnel for their money in without the problem of being identified or being pointed to it quickly and directly. If this continues, more people will think that crypto is a bad thing or in a sense it is a bad publicity.

Of course, in the case of crypto it is much more difficult to find the culprits but we see that it is not impossible.
There is no decentralisation for crime.

If the criminal is smart enough and not just a thug that has a computer then they can easily get their cyber trail out of the picture. It is possible to catch them but the smallest fish are sloppiest ones, remember Dr. Ruja aka CryptoQueen and the founder of OneCoin, she is still on the loose and the money stolen compared to this Serbian guy. The problem does not rely on the cryptocurrency, the problem is the people, they easily get taken by sweet words and cons of criminals and their greed, if people were to learn this kind of schemes, the chances of them not losing money gets higher.

[Rikafip]

Persecution of fraud requires regulation and funding. I don't know the exact state of cryptocurrency legislation in Serbia, however, in case there are no regulations there won't be persecution of this type of criminals either. What many don't understand is that without the government having a stream of income from a certain industry, it won't be able to spend taxes from the rest of the society that doesn't use cryptocurrencies.

It doesn't matter what kind of scam it is, scam a scam and will be dealt with. I don't know if you actually read the article, but it's not the Serbia that will prosecute Antonio Sojiljkovic &Co but United States. Serbia arrested him back in July 2021 and few days ago, on February 4th 2021 he was extradited to Texas, where majority of victims are from and where he will be trialed.

From the "investors" point of view, this should have been a warning

The platforms also offered an 80 percent average payout and a 20 percent refund on lost trade.

From what its written in the article they used pretty much basic scamming techniques like luring potential investors in with fake female profiles and offering 50% discount when buying BTC. That answers to those that still think none falls for pretty obvious scams, not knowing how ignorant and greedy people are, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

[Altcoinsintel]

Persecution of fraud requires regulation and funding. I don't know the exact state of cryptocurrency legislation in Serbia, however, in case there are no regulations there won't be persecution of this type of criminals either. What many don't understand is that without the government having a stream of income from a certain industry, it won't be able to spend taxes from the rest of the society that doesn't use cryptocurrencies.

It doesn't matter what kind of scam it is, scam a scam and will be dealt with. I don't know if you actually read the article, but it's not the Serbia that will prosecute Antonio Sojiljkovic &Co but United States. Serbia arrested him back in July 2021 and few days ago, on February 4th 2021 he was extradited to Texas, where majority of victims are from and where he will be trialed.

Thanks, I admit I didn't read the article but it didn't change a lot after reading it. There is always politics involved. This is a case of fraud victims being from the USA and the criminals being arrested on demand of the US government.

But remember also the case of Vinnik. He was only arrested outside of Russian territory as Russia wouldn't cooperate with any arrest warrant from the US. It had no applicable law to arrest Vinnik for laundering Bitcoin or other charges he is facing. It also seems that Russia had the interest to extradite him back and attempted and still attempting so. Therefore, the US authorities didn't ask Russia to arrest and extradite him as they knew it wouldn't happen.

Serbia in this case has cooperated with the USA authorities.
I agree that scam should always be punished, but in the case of Bitcoin and the lack of clear rules and regulations, authorities may be reluctant in many cases.

In no way I think that criminals should not be arrested finding a loophole in the regulations, however it happened and can still happen as long as there are vague regulations in many countries. The law may be interpreted in various ways but if there is clear evidence of scam or theft, it should always be applied. However I mentioned this strange case in Russia as it can happen in any country that hasn't regulated cryptocurrencies and hasn't given any status on Bitcoin.

[Red Pie]

How the man was defrauded is important here. If you invest so heavily in cryptocurrencies, you need to know the basics. 70 million dollars is a lot of money. If he can find a legal response, maybe he can get their money back. These scams only shake the trust in cryptocurrencies.