Two app developers placed 87 fraudulent apps on the online store Google Play. These apps forced users to pay high fees to withdraw money from their cryptocurrency investments. Google alleges that the developers violated the RICO Act and committed bank fraud. It also notes that they violated various policies on Google’s platforms.

Google sues two cryptocurrency app developers!

Search engine giant Google has sued two developers for allegedly placing a series of fraudulent cryptocurrency-based apps on the Google Play store. The two defendants, Yunfeng Sun and Hongnam Cheung, allegedly placed 87 fraudulent apps on Google Play over the past four years. Google filed a lawsuit in this regard on Thursday in the Southern District of New York. Accordingly, these schemes affected at least 100,000 people. Allegedly, 8,700 of them live in the United States.

Again, the victims allegedly changed their tune when they tried to withdraw the funds. This is because they had to pay fees to cover the cost of the supposed principal investments and earnings. In some cases, the app charged an additional 10% to 30% to withdraw user funds. In fact, they sometimes didn’t pay these funds at all. In this context, Google stated in its complaint:

Defendants and their agents designed the fake apps made available on Google Play to appear legitimate. Their user interfaces attempted to convince victims that they were holding a balance on the app and getting a ‘return’ on their investment. However, these statements were false. The apps were not real trading platforms; they existed only to take users’ money, which the scammers then made off with.

Fraud method: Pig butchering!

Google used to remove such cryptocurrency apps when it detected them. However, developers were hiding their identities and network infrastructure to place new apps in the Google Play store. The developers also used the “pork butchering” scam technique, which involves gaining the victim’s trust through seemingly friendly or romantic ties to influence the victim to invest in a fraudulent financial venture.

The developers would initiate the conversation with the wrong number messages and establish a relationship. They would then offer victims to download an app called “TionRT”, which claimed to be a cryptocurrency exchange. The scammers told victims to trade using TionRT to earn extra income. They were also advised to withdraw their money when they saw a profit. However, they had to pay a fee to get their money back. For this and other scams, Google alleges that the developers violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, committed bank fraud, and violated various policies on Google’s platforms.