Guilty conscience? The crooks return the $30 million collected in ICO

[Paha87]

Earlier this week in South Korea, the Pure Bit project raised more than $30 million on ICO and disappeared, removing the site and accounts, but now the scammers are going to return the users ' funds.

On November 4, the Pure Bit project completed the ICO, raising more than $ 30 million to create a crypto-exchange based on the Ethereum blockchain. On November 13, Pure Bit and its operators closed all their social media accounts, including groups with KakaoTalk with a "sorry"message.

A few hours after the incident, all financial and business-oriented media in South Korea reported the case, raising awareness and reporting to the authorities.

One news team went so far as to trace the Ethereum address of Pure Bit and created an Upbit request (the second largest crypto-exchange in South Korea) to block the fraudsters ' account and freeze funds. Upbit accepted the request and immediately froze the funds.

Strange turn

Perhaps because of the involvement of law enforcement agencies and the unexpected support from the country's mainstream media to provide widespread news of the Scam, the crooks have already partially reimbursed the funds for several victims and promised to return all the remaining funds.

Pure Bit has released a statement apologizing for its fraud. The CEO stated that he was" blinded by money "and made"an unforgivable mistake." The statement reads:

This Is Pure Bit. First of all, I would like to apologize to everyone who has suffered from the ICO. Since November 5, I received 16'000 ETH and did not open the crypto exchange as promised. I deleted everyone on our social networks and disappeared without any messages. I had a negative impact on investors in the project psychologically and financially.

I made an unforgivable mistake, blinded by money. It was less than a day, and I already began to suffer the pangs of conscience. While this cannot be compared to the difficulties faced by investors, I also felt considerable guilt. I sincerely apologize to all ICO investors who have suffered.

The CEO stated that the project will reimburse all 16 ' 000 ETH, not counting the fee received by a third party to initiate an ICO on behalf of Pure Bit.

Because of guilt or fear?

In a statement, the Director General claimed that he was burdened with guilt and ultimately decided to reimburse the victims of fraud.

Over the past few months, local police, the Korean Internet and security Agency and the financial services Commission (FSC) have made significant efforts to combat fraud and improve crypto-exchanges with poor internal management systems.

Given the scale of the case and the unprecedented level of media coverage, it is possible that the organizers of the fraud felt that things got out of control, and will turn bad for them. After all, a person with the level of empathy demonstrated by the above statement would not initiate a Scam that could affect millions of people psychologically and mentally.

Link to the source of information (Russian) - https://altstake.io/news/zamuchila-sovesty-moshenniki-vozvraschayut30-mln-sobrannye-na-ico