Pakistan issues notice to cryptocurrency exchange in $100-mn scam

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said that it had issued a notice to Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, during the investigation of an alleged cryptocurrency scam involving around $100 million.

The notice called the general manager or growth analyst of Binance Pakistan to appear and explain the organization's position on the linkage of fraudulent online investment mobile applications with the exchange, Xinhua news agency quoted a statement from FIA's cybercrime wing as saying.

"A relevant questionnaire has also been sent to Binance Headquarters Cayman Islands and Binance US to explain the same," it added.

Last month, people from all over Pakistan launched complaints to the FIA against at least 11 mobile applications which had stopped working over a period of time and allegedly defrauded their billions of Pakistani rupees, the FIA said.

The initial findings revealed that each such application had on average 5,000 customers with HFC, one of the applications, reportedly having a maximum of 30,000 customers, said the statement.

According to the FIA, "the reported range of investment per person was from $100 to $80,000 with an estimated average of $2,000 per person thus making estimated scam stand at nearly $100 million".

--IANS

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