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A 20-year-old resident of Chelyabinsk is set to face trial under fraud charges: according to investigators, he made a purchase using counterfeit cryptocurrency.
The prosecution claims that the young man found a set of computer equipment listed for a total of 90,000 rubles on a classifieds website. The accused contacted the seller and proposed to pay for the equipment with cryptocurrency—specifically, stablecoins USDT pegged to the dollar. The seller agreed and provided his cryptocurrency wallet address. After a while, tokens were sent to the address, and the seller dispatched the goods to the buyer.
However, when the seller attempted to transfer or cash out the USDT, he discovered that the tokens were fake, according to the prosecution. Law enforcement believes that the Chelyabinsk resident intentionally sent fraudulent cryptocurrency. The specifics of what constitutes the counterfeit digital currency have not been clarified by the prosecution.
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The case materials have been forwarded to the court. The young man is expected to be prosecuted under the fraud statute (part 2 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). He faces a fine of up to 300,000 rubles or imprisonment for a term of up to five years.
Counterfeiting cryptocurrency is challenging but feasible, note analysts from the AWX cryptocurrency exchange. The USDT stablecoin does not have its own blockchain and operates as a second-layer token based on other networks (Tron, Ethereum, BNB Chain). In each of these networks, anyone can create their own token and name it anything, including Tether with the ticker USDT—however, this token will not be linked to the dollar, will not be traded on exchanges, and will essentially have no value.
In late March, the police in Vietnam uncovered a fraudulent scheme involving “counterfeit cryptocurrency” amounting to billions of dollars. The scheme was allegedly employed by the creators of the Vietnamese platform ONUS, according to law enforcement.
