Binance supports US efforts to compensate victims of the 2017-18 Centra Tech scam. The US will return 100,000 ETH to 170 thousand victims who traded the CTR token as compensation for fraud. Binance continues to work to identify as many victims of this scam as possible and is thrilled that they will be able to get their funds back.
“We are anti-crime and proud to partner with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to help victims of the Centra Tech scam,” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. “We are very pleased that tens of thousands of users can get their money back. Protecting our users has always been our top priority, and we have greatly expanded our ability to do so since the Centra Tech fraud incident five years ago. We continue to actively collaborate with regulators, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to create a secure and well-ordered crypto ecosystem that allows everyone to reap the benefits of modern finance. The DOJ's success in this case is an extremely important step forward for our rapidly growing industry."
More information about the US Department of Justice's Division of Compensation and the process for returning funds to victims can be found here. More information about Binance's industry-leading efforts to protect users and fight crime on its platform can be found here.
History
In mid-2017, Sohrab Sharma, along with co-conspirators Robert Farkas and Raymond Trapani, founded a company called Centra Tech, which claimed to offer financial products related to cryptocurrencies. They also stated that the company is led by an experienced team with connections to Visa, Mastercard and other companies. Based on this information, victims provided millions of dollars in digital funds as investments to purchase Centra Tech tokens. Several months later, at the end of the defendants' fundraising, these digital funds were worth more than $25 million. More details in the article:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/leading-co-founder-cryptocurrency-company-sentenced-8-years-prison-ico-fraud-scheme
