11 Million Euros Seized as FIOD Arrest Man on Suspected Casino Exit Scam

The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (Fiscale inlichtingen- en opsporingsdienst, FIOD), alongside Dutch prosecutors, recently announced that a 26-year old man was arrested on suspicion of fraud in relation to the online, decentralized casino—ZKasino—following reports of users not being able to access their funds. Upon the arrest, FIOD successfully recovered over EUR 11 million, including real estate, vehicles, and cryptocurrencies. 

ZKasino, which still appears to be live and their website still running, allows users to gamble with virtual assets on a number of games, such as Dice, Coin Flip, Poker, and Plinko—openly advertising that no KYC details were required to play, and claiming that over USD 324 million has been waged on the platform to date. 

Many users of ZKasino took to the internet and X (formally Twitter) to talk about the fraud. Using blockchain intelligence and information gained from online sources, a timeline of events can be formed.

On March 16, a smart contract was created, which advertised offers of ZKAS tokens in exchange for ETH to ZKasino users, which ZKasino claimed would later be returned back to users. Upon the contract creation, over 11,400 deposits of ETH were made from over 8,815 individual Ethereum wallets, for a total of over USD 36.5 million.

As shown in the graph below, on April 20, these funds started to move, first by going via another decentralized platform, before then being sent to three separate Ethereum addresses on April 29 (red transfer lines). This suggests these funds were removed off the platform as part of the fraud. However, these funds have since been returned back to their origin as of May 9 (green transfer lines), which happened after the suspect was arrested by FIOD. 

The investigation remains ongoing.

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