Google is suing two developers who published 87 fake investment and cryptocurrency apps on Google Play. The Alphabet-owned company told Quartz it is the first Big Tech company to tackle crypto fraud.
“Keeping people safe online is at the core of our business, and we will not tolerate the misuse of our platform to facilitate crypto fraud,” Halima Delaine Prado, the company's general counsel, said in a statement. ” he said. “This lawsuit is an important step in holding these bad actors accountable and sending a clear message that we will aggressively pursue those who seek to take advantage of our users.”
in that complaint In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York, Google said scammers lured about 100,000 users into apps using names such as SkypeWallet and Starlight.
For example, Starlight was marketed to Ghanaians on TikTok and Instagram videos as a way to earn money by watching videos and completing tasks. Starlight asked people to invest before they started making money, but it never returned the money or paid users as promised. SkypeWallet and another app, TionRT, posed as cryptocurrency exchanges, but also failed to generate profits from users' investments.
Suspicious encryption schemes are on the rise Since the pandemic. Last year, federal regulators took action against the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. coinbase, FTX, Binance, or their founders.In perhaps the most high-profile case, FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed was convicted of a crime steal at least $10 billion investors and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Other plans were also exposed. YouTuber indicted by Securities and Exchange Commission He allegedly swindled investors out of about $1 billion and used it to buy himself Rolex watches and other shiny things.federal and state investigators The founder of virtual currency financier Celsius was investigated. Regarding fraud concerns.
Google has taken direct legal action against scammers in the past.The company sued an anonymous individual late last year. For promoting a fake version of the AI chatbot Bard (Renamed to Gemini) was actually malware.
