Hey, friends! Hang on tight, because I've got the gossip for you, but the bad kind! Between November 2024 and June 2025, a brutal scam was hatched that netted over $50 million from a bunch of crypto investors. The scenario? None other than Telegram! 📱
Imagine the trick: some smart guys were offering tokens for projects like SEI, Aptos, SUI, and Graph (and a ton more, like NEAR, Axelar, Celestia—up to 30 assets!), with discounts of up to 50%. It seemed like a bargain! But beware! They promised to deliver the tokens after 4 or 5 months, a period they call "vesting."
At first, in the early rounds, the scammers delivered. Yes, they delivered the tokens on time! This generated incredible trust. People thought, "Oh, look how good these guys are, they're serious!" And so, with that bait, they attracted more and more investors, including venture capital funds and people with deep pockets. A classic Ponzi scheme! 🌀 They used the newcomers' money to pay the old ones and maintain the facade.
The business was conducted in private Telegram groups, by invitation only. The brokers who facilitated these deals had a good reputation among OTC investors (those direct buying and selling transactions). But the worst part is that there were no formal contracts or thorough verification of the transactions. Pure "trust me, my king"! 😩
The Alarms Went Off, But No One Heeded! 🚨 blind
As the scam grew, they brought in more intermediaries to disguise the fact that all the money was going to one place, a "central operator" they called "Source 1." The thing is, some project teams (like NEAR, for example) even issued public alerts saying the offers were fake! But people, blinded by greed and initial trust, ignored them! 🙉
When there were delivery delays, scammers came up with cheap excuses: "paperwork problems," "travel delays"—pure lies to buy time!
The House of Cards Has Fallen and the Culprit Now Has a Name! 🃏🕵️♂️
In June 2025, the game was over. Token deliveries (the last offering was from Fluid) began to fail without explanation. The excuses of "technical glitches" no longer held water. On June 19, Aza Ventures (one of the companies driving the business) had to admit to the scam. They confirmed that the main operator was using money from new investors to pay off old debts. The Ponzi scheme collapsed! 🤯
The mastermind behind all this was discovered to be an Indian national linked to a project listed on Binance! Although Aza Ventures hasn't revealed his identity publicly (they say it's to privately pressure him into returning the money), transfers of nearly $24 million have already been traced to addresses connected to him. What nerve!
The accused, as expected, denied everything. And the company where he worked dismissed him, claiming he had strayed from the project's original vision. Now, Indian authorities are launching a formal investigation. And the brokers caught up in this mess are looking for ways to reimburse those affected and continue talks with the alleged scammer. Let's hope people recover anything! 🙏
The Consequences and the Big Lesson! 😔Lesson Learned
This scam was a devastating blow to confidence in the informal OTC market. The prices of tokens linked to this fraud plummeted, and many large investors lost a fortune. Some are going through very difficult times, with financial and emotional stress.
The lesson here is clear, people: be prepared! Before plunking down any offer, no matter how lucrative it may seem, you need to verify the provenance of the assets, review the transaction history on the blockchain (on-chain), and heed official project warnings. If there are no formal contracts specifying the terms, deadlines, and what happens if you don't comply, you'd better run! 🏃♂️💨
The OTC market may offer early opportunities, yes, but informality is a double-edged sword. Don't be fooled! Your money is sacred! $TON $BTC
