https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/victim-services/seeking-victim-information/seeking-victims-in-the-hashflare-investigation

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Seeking Victims in the HashFlare Investigation

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November 21, 2022

Seeking Victims in the HashFlare Investigation

The FBI's Seattle Division is seeking information from potential
victims of two fraudulent schemes launched by Ivan Turogin and Sergei
Potapenko through their companies:

 1. HashCoins
 2. HashFlare.io, a cryptocurrency cloud mining operation
 3. Polybius, an investment offering in support of a digital bank
    project

Starting in or around 2015, Ivan Turogin and Sergei Potapenko
promoted their cloud mining service, HashFlare.io, which was launched
by their company HashCoins OU. Throughout its existence, HashFlare.io
offered five different types of mining contracts to the public:
SHA-256 (bitcoin), ETHASH (ether), Scrypt, DASH, and ZCASH.

The government alleges that the HashFlare cloud mining service did
not have access to the volume of mining power that was needed to
service the amount of mining contracts it sold to the public. The
government further alleges that, to enable HashFlare to create the
illusion that it was mining bitcoin, Potapenko purchased bitcoin from
a third party and distributed it to victims who were requesting
withdrawals from their HashFlare account. Eventually, the HashFlare
cloud mining service was substantially terminated in July 2018, and
Turogin and Potapenko used the remaining funds for their personal
benefit.

Questionnaire: Seeking Victims in the HashFlare Investigation

Additional Resources

  * Initial Coin Offerings (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  * Rights of Victims of Federal Crimes
  * Find Help and Information for Crime Victims (U.S. Department of
    Justice)
  * Financial Crimes Resource Center (National Center for Victims of
    Crime)

In 2017, while HashFlare was still selling cloud mining contracts to
the public, Turogin, Potapenko, and other affiliates launched an ICO,
Polybius, advertising the sale of PLBT tokens. PLBT token buyers were
entitled to a 20% dividend from the profits that were generated from
the main project Polybius claimed to be developing: a digital bank.
The ICO collected approximately $31 million to be used for the
creation of the digital bank. The government alleges that, instead of
using the proceeds to create a digital bank, Turogin and Potapenko
used a large portion of the proceeds for their own personal benefit.

If you made any purchases and/or withdrawals from HashFlare, please
complete this brief questionnaire.

Your responses are voluntary but would be useful in the federal
investigation and to identify you as a potential victim. Based on the
responses provided, you may be contacted by the FBI and asked to
provide additional information. 

The FBI is legally mandated to identify victims of federal crimes
that it investigates and provide these victims with information,
assistance services, and resources.

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