"Get rich quick" schemes during the Covid-19 pandemic

Press/Media: Expert comment

Description

Mark Button comments on the increase in "get rich quick" schemes during the Covid-19 pandemic

Period18 Jan 2021 → 29 Apr 2021

Media coverage

3

Media coverage

  • TitleA Ponzi scheme for the modern era
    Degree of recognitionInternational
    Media name/outletTrinidad and Tobago Newsday
    Media typeWeb
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    Date29/04/21
    DescriptionNovember 2020 was the 100-year anniversary of the imprisonment of Charles Ponzi – infamous creator of the fraudulent scheme to which he gave his name. Exactly a century later, Gutemberg Dos Santos, founder of AirBit Club, a cryptocurrency mining and trading company, was charged in the US with various offences relating to an alleged 'international investment scam', which, as described by the prosecutor, has all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme.
    URLhttps://newsday.co.tt/2021/04/29/a-ponzi-scheme-for-the-modern-era/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-ponzi-scheme-for-the-modern-era
    PersonsBrian Frederick
  • Title'Only missing Bitcoin trader CEO can give answers'
    Degree of recognitionInternational
    Media name/outletOFM Online
    Media typeWeb
    Country/TerritorySouth Africa
    Date18/01/21
    DescriptionMark Button, speaking of online ponzi schemes in general, said that lots of people in financial difficulties are looking for a means to improve their situation. At the same time, people have more time on their hands - due to being furloughed, losing their jobs, recovering from illness - which "may expose them to such schemes when online occupying their time".
    URLhttps://www.ofm.co.za/article/general/300790/only-missing-bitcoin-trader-ceo-can-give-answers
    PersonsMark Button
  • TitleVanishing act: Only the missing CEO of bitcoin trader MTI can give answers, says employee
    Degree of recognitionInternational
    Media name/outletAsset News Hub
    Media typeWeb
    Country/TerritorySouth Africa
    Date18/01/21
    DescriptionThe CEO of South African bitcoin trading planform MTI, which was provisionally liquidated in late December after it stopped paying out funds to thousands of members, has not been heard from in four weeks.

    While MTI has in the past denied it was a ponzi scheme, a professor of counter fraud studies says get-rich-quick schemes are likely to have proliferated due to Covid-19.
    URLhttps://newshub.assetmag.co.za/svw1/item/56542878
    PersonsMark Button