A crypto-related Ponzi scheme exploited nearly 200,000 Indians across states, according to the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW).
Asian News International (ANI) claims that Solar Techno Alliance created the STA Token cryptocurrency on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). According to the study, STA Token worked as a Ponzi scheme where income from new investors was used to fund existing investors.
#WATCH | Bhubaneswar: On a Rs 1,000 crore cryptocurrency scam, (IG EOW) JN Pankaj says, "Odisha (EOW) has busted a very big multimedia, pyramid structure, ponzi scam…We have got to know that people have invested more than Rs 1,000 crores in this scam across India. Around 10,000… pic.twitter.com/K0UZACouCg
— ANI (@ANI) August 8, 2023
According to data from CoinMarketCap (CMC), STA was first made public in September 2022 with a starting price of about $0.84. On April 3, 2023, the asset reached its all-time high (ATH), which was $3.01.
Furthermore, according to CMC statistics, STA’s market cap is $0 at the time of writing. The price of the coin is at $0.09, 97% below its all-time high.
According to the investigation, the STA project’s creators frequently changed places while operating undercover for a considerable amount of time. The company’s executives were detained in various cities.
According to ANI, the pyramid-structured Ponzi scheme gained from investors more than 1,000 crores (10 billion) Indian rupees, or more than $120 million.
Almost $450 million worth of digital assets were stolen in the first half of 2023, according to a report from July 13 by scammers and hackers. While the sum appears to be substantial, it is still 77% less than H1 2022, according to the Chainalysis analysis.