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Crypto investor Michael Terpin has written an open letter to US FCC chairman Ajit Pai requesting urgent action on SIM swapping fraud. He asked the regulator to make mobile carriers hide customer passwords from employees and to provide a "no port" option, whereby customers would have to go through a company's fraud department before transferring their SIM information to a new phone. In a SIM swap, criminals pose as the owners of a victim's mobile phone number, convincing telecom providers to grant them access to the SIM card.

EY failed for more than three years to request crucial account information from a Singapore bank where Wirecard claimed it had up to €1bn in cash - a routine audit procedure that could have uncovered the vast fraud at the German payments group. EY said that there were "clear indications that this was an elaborate and sophisticated fraud, involving multiple parties around the world in different institutions, with a deliberate aim of deception". The company argued that "even the most robust audit procedures may not uncover this kind of fraud".

The Bank of Russia introduced new rules, effective on February 23, 2025, requiring banks to suspend digital ruble transactions for two days if they are suspected of involving fraud. If such a transaction is detected, the bank will notify the customer about possible fraud. If the customer doesn't confirm it by the next day, the transaction will be canceled. Similar measures have been in effect for ordinary transfers since July 24, 2024. https://cbr.ru/press/event/?id=23261

Crypto Capital founder Reggie Fowler is being charged by the SDNY with bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and of running an unlicensed money transmission business and conspiracy related to its operation. Crypto Capital were the money transmitters for Bitfinex and Tether.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia found "that customers with logins via an aggregator are two or more times more likely to experience fraud, a statistically significant result at a 95% confidence interval.

A U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) probe into Tether is homing in on whether executives behind the USDT stablecoin committed bank fraud, a potential criminal case that would have broad implications for the crypto-asset market. The DoJ is scrutinizing whether Tether concealed from banks that transactions were linked to crypto-assets.

Bitfinex claimed Friday that it was the "victim of a fraud" at the hands of Crypto Capital, a payment processor that allegedly lost $880 million of Bitfinex's money. Crypto Capital's president, Ivan Manuel Molina Lee, was arrested Thursday by Polish police on charges of money laundering.

An Ontario Securities Commission investigation has concluded that the collapse of crypto-exchange QuadrigaCX was the result of fraud by its founder Gerry Cotten. QuadrigaCX shut down in January 2019, weeks after Cotten died unexpected while on his honeymoon in India, leaving behind a mystery of what happened to the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the platform. The collapse caused at least C$169 million in losses for 76,000 investors in Canada and abroad.

Most of the civilized world years ago shifted to requiring computer chips in payment cards that make it far more expensive and difficult for thieves to clone and use them for fraud. One notable exception is the United States, which is still lurching toward this goal. Here's a look at the havoc that lag has wrought, as seen through the purchasing patterns at one of the underground's biggest stolen card shops that was hacked last year.

US prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud unit are reportedly looking into Silvergate's dealings with fallen crypto giants FTX and Alameda Research. The criminal investigation is examining Silvergate's hosting of accounts tied to Sam Bankman-Fried's businesses. The review adds to mounting scrutiny of the La Jolla, California-based crypto-friendly bank, which has also drawn the attention of lawmakers.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, since the start of 2021, approximately 46,000 Americans have lost more than $1 billion worth of digital assets in crypto scams. The fraudulent activities affected approximately 46,000 people. $575 million was lost in investment-related crypto scams, $185 million to romance frauds, and $93 million to business imposters. Because the vast majority of frauds are not reported, these figures are assumed to reflect just a small fraction of the public harm.

"The Commission previously approved ETPs that hold only futures contracts that trade on the CME, which is registered with the CFTC; those ETPs' underlying assets are thus subject to robust surveillance," it said. "The bitcoin spot market, by contrast, is fragmented and unregulated, and petitioner presented no supportable basis to conclude that the CME's surveillance of futures trading would sufficiently detect and deter fraud and manipulation targeting the bitcoin spot market and thereby protect against fraud and manipulation in Grayscale's product." https://grayscale.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Reply-Brief-of-Respondent-SEC-12092022.pdf

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published consultation paper that proposes removing the £100 contactless payment limit. It was raised from £45 in 2021, just a year after a rise from £30 amid a surge in tap and pay during the Covid-19 pandemic. By removing the limit, U.K. families and businesses could benefit from greater choice, flexibility and smoother purchases. Also, the regulator said that making regulation less prescriptive would also give firms greater control and could promote innovative payment methods or fraud prevention solutions. One option put forward is to allow firms, who use technology to reinforce strong fraud controls, to set their own limits as happens in the United States.

According to a report by from the office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, fraud and scams are a growing problem on peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service Zelle, and the banks that run the platform are not refunding the vast majority of defrauded consumers, breaking their promises to their customers and potentially violating federal law. A response by the industry acknowledged that Zelle,  like every instant P2P payment service, is not entirely free from those who seek to defraud users, but expanding the bank liability framework would have adverse impacts on consumers choice, the cost of the service, and on small financial institutions for whom the costs related to the potential for unlimited liability would be too onerous.

Now the crypto industry has its own MF Global - the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. It is being investigated for fraud after losing $850m of its customers' money.

A poll taken by the audience of about 300 DTCC customers and others showed that while 74% of the audience's employers were participating in blockchain projects expected to be rolled out to customers, only 23% were planning to implement a business solution involving cryptocurrency. The three largest obstacles to the audience deciding to invest in cryptocurrency were regulatory uncertainty (29%), valuation approach (29%) and fraud (21%).

Contrary to what many think, China does not oppose blockchain technology. Rather, it takes issue with bitcoin and other privately issued cryptocurrencies, which it fears may facilitate financial fraud and capital flight. The PBOC has in fact had an initiative for issuing a blockchain-based digital renminbi since 2014. The project has already generated 71 patents and has initiated a trial operation for an interbank digital check and billing platform.

"Buffett's characterization of Bitcoin as a fraud-filled arena is particularly rich given the plethora of indictments against Wells Fargo, a bank which Berkshire Hathaway owns almost 10 percent."

Blockchains remain high-cost solutions, often beset by chaotic competition, and they exist in ecosystems beset with dishonesty, fraud and human error. Blockchains might have a chance to change the world someday, but there's also a chance they will prove useless.

CipherTrace found that losses due to cryptocurrency thefts, scams and fraud tally more than $1.2 billion in A1 2019. This includes $356 million stolen from exchanges and the loss of $850 million by major exchange Bitfinex