Citibank is facing a federal lawsuit over its involvement in a multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency scam, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. Plaintiff Michael Zidell, a Dallas resident, alleges the banking giant facilitated the fraud when a scammer stole $20 million from him through a “pig butchering” scheme.
According to court documents filed June 24, Zidell contacted a person named Carolyn Parker via Facebook in January 2023. Parker presented herself as a California-based businesswoman and repeatedly communicated via phone and video calls on the messaging platform WeChat.
Initially, the relationship was intimate, but Zidell gradually fell in love with Parker after only a few weeks of communication.
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In February 2023, Parker introduced Zidell to her investments in the non-fungible token (NFT) space, claiming she had made millions of dollars in profits on an exchange called OpenrarityPro.
Zidell recounted that the scammer described the site as “one of the largest NFT trading platforms in the world.” Parker’s personal affinity and “fake” investment performance led him to invest in the advertised NFT project.
Zidell made 43 consecutive transfers to various bank accounts, totaling more than $20 million. Of these, nearly $4 million was transferred to accounts at Citibank.
One of the recipient accounts, Guju Inc., received 12 transfers through Citibank. The lawsuit says Citibank ignored multiple warning signs, including large transfers and unusually rounded numbers, and should have conducted rigorous compliance checks.
By March 2023, Zidell believed his investment in OpenrarityPro had skyrocketed. Court records show the site displayed an account balance of more than $300 million.
When he tried to withdraw his funds, the platform required “risk-based” staking to unlock the assets. Zidell transferred more funds but was then repeatedly asked to pay additional fees to process the withdrawal. However, not a single cent was returned.
Trading platform suddenly disappeared
By late April 2023, the OpenrarityPro site was inaccessible. Zidell realized he had been scammed and determined it was a “rug pull,” a cryptocurrency term for a fraudulent exit scam that involves a sudden withdrawal of funds.
He reported the incident to the Dallas Police Department and the FBI.
The lawsuit alleges that Citibank was responsible for facilitating the fraud by failing to be vigilant for obvious “red flags.” The bank also failed to properly investigate the accounts receiving the transfers, despite large transactions with many related organizations and individuals.
The lawsuit cites Citibank for breaching its duty to monitor suspicious transactions and for being lax in implementing required security measures.
“Citibank failed to detect clearly unusual transactions and failed to monitor the accounts despite numerous large, round-figure transfers from trusts and other individuals in suspicious forms,” Zidell’s lawyers wrote.
Source: https://tintucbitcoin.com/citibank-kien-vi-lua-dao-tinh-ai/
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