Two Chinese Android app developers have been sued by Google for allegedly defrauding 100,000 users around the world with fake cryptocurrency and other investment apps.
The company is taking action after scammers reportedly deceived victims with false promises of high returns through an Android app that offered cryptocurrency investment opportunities.
There are at least 87 fake apps on Google Play promising returns to investors, but failing to make the claimed profits when trying to withdraw funds.
Google says some fraud victims have lost as much as $75,000.
According to Google, victims are asked to pay additional “fees” or “taxes” before withdrawing funds, which are then pocketed by the scammers.
Google sued two men, Yunfeng Sun (aka “Alphonse Sun”) and Hongnam Cheung (aka “Zhang Hongnim” or “Stanford Fischer”), who were accused of “hundreds of wire fraud.”
Google claims that these individuals used three main methods to “conduct social engineering and lure victim investors to download fraudulent apps from Google Play and other sources”:
- text message It is sent to potential victims via Google Voice, disguised as a message sent to the wrong number (e.g., “I’m Sofia, do you remember me?”). The conversation will move to other platforms and attempts will be made to develop a friendship or romantic relationship, ultimately convincing the victim to invest through one of the apps (a technique known as “pig slaughtering”).
- online videos Deceiving potential investors by presenting crypto applications as legitimate and secure. The videos will promise high returns on investment and share details about the platform’s “leadership team,” who are essentially paid actors.
- Affiliate Marketing Campaign The company promises to let users become “members” of investment apps and earn commissions by getting more users to sign up for a “guaranteed and easy way to make money” through social media.
Fake investment platforms like TrionRT appear legitimate in a number of ways, including by distributing press releases.
When victims complain to a “friend” or “romantic partner” who encouraged them to use the service, they find their “friend” or “romantic partner” disappears.
SkypeWallet is a suspected fraudulent cryptocurrency investment application linked to Sun Yunfeng. Google promoted it through a video that purported to be the leadership team of the SkypeCoin company and guaranteed high returns.
Another reported scam scheme, OTCAI, has a similar promotional video.
Interestingly, both videos claim to show the founder of the company (“Romser Bennett”), but apparently different actors play different people.
In addition, the actor who played engineer “Rodriguez” in one app’s video played technical leader “William Bryant” in another app.
The lawsuit filed by Google is the latest in a series of actions taken against scammers targeting Android users. Although the company removed the offending apps from Google Play upon discovery, the scammers allegedly created new aliases to disguise their connections to the apps.
