The men had multiple profiles with fake names on Binance. After users made the alleged payment, the criminals proceeded to block the funds in the bank account.
Two men got arrested by the Venezuelan Scientific, and Criminal Investigation Corps (Cicpc), for defrauding at least USD 133,000 through the bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
The alleged criminals are the 21-year-old Leonardo Manuel Rodríguez Bolívar and the 27-year-old Aaron Sinuhe Yepez Paredes. The criminals got arrested in Guárico, an area based in the central region of the country; As reported by Commissioner Douglas Rico, director of the scientific police.
The men, who are currently at the command of the Venezuelan judicial entities, had several profiles with false names on Binance. The arrest ended up with the seizure of a laptop and two cell phones.
Likewise, the police are on the trail of 20-year-old Wilker Alfredo Hernández Bolívar, another of those implicated in the case and who also has a record of lewd acts. The authorities did not clarify the number of people who received damage from the men and how many cryptocurrencies they had in their possession.
Fraudulent Transactions
The modus operandi of the subjects worked by carrying out fraudulent transactions for the purchase of cryptocurrencies. The victims found the alleged payments in their bank accounts for the sale of the crypto assets but the funds could not get unblocked.
When the alleged criminals verified that they had received the cryptocurrencies in their wallets, they blocked the money in the bank account. They proceeded to carry out the procedures for the funds to return to their respective accounts.
Binance has acquired a lot of popularity in the South American nation, especially for the P2P service. Binance allows users to receive bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Binance coin (BNB), tether (USDT), and Binance USD (BUSD) with Venezuelan bolivars, without commissions.
Last August, another criminal act in Venezuela also involved Binance. A financial operator got denounced for defrauding his clients with at least 23.66 bitcoin, pushing users to believe that their funds got stolen, and even simulating his kidnapping.
A 23-year-old Venezuelan is a fugitive from the police for stealing 23.66 bitcoin (BTC). The defendant is Andrés Jesús Dos Santos Hernández, a financial operator who got denounced for defrauding his clients and pushing them into believing that their funds got stolen.
Specifically, the scammer’s plan consisted of simulating his kidnapping. According to the scammer’s words, his captors would have forced him to enter the Binance cryptocurrency exchange and transfer all the assets kept there to various wallets. At the close of this note, the funds in BTC run in parallel with 1,150,000 dollars.
The information that flourished due to the search for Dos Santos Hernández came from Douglas Rico, director of the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) through his Instagram account. Likewise, the event was the target of various reports from Venezuelan media outlets.
By: Jenson Nuñez
