Self Chain founder denies involvement in $50 million OTC cryptocurrency fraud

PANews reported on June 20 that according to DL News, Self Chain founder Ravindra Kumar was recently accused of being involved in a $50 million over-the-counter crypto scam, defrauding investors through fake token transactions. Kumar issued a statement on the X platform to firmly deny the allegations, calling them "completely false" and saying that the legal team was preparing to write a response statement.

The scam involved over-the-counter transactions of tokens from several well-known projects, including Sui, Near, Axelar and Sei. Mohammed Waseem, CEO of Indian over-the-counter broker Aza Ventures, revealed that his company had inadvertently facilitated dozens of fraudulent transactions over the past few months. Although the initial transactions were real, they later evolved into a Ponzi scheme, with the seller using the code name "Source 1" to commit fraud by delaying the delivery of tokens. Waseem claimed that he had contacted the Indian authorities and promised to refund the deceived investors, but his personal funds had been exhausted due to advance payments. Currently, "Source 1" has promised to start returning funds by the end of June. It is worth noting that before the scam was exposed, many industry insiders, including Mysten Labs co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun and MultiversX co-founder Lucian Mincu, have repeatedly warned of the existence of false over-the-counter transactions.