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Home Seeking Victims in the HashFlare Investigation

Seeking Victims in the HashFlare Investigation

The FBI’s Seattle Division is seeking information from potential victims of two fraudulent schemes launched by Ivan Turõgin and Sergei Potapenko through their companies: (1) HashCoins, 2) HashFlare.io, a cryptocurrency cloud mining operation, and (3) Polybius, an investment offering in support of a digital bank project.

Starting in or around 2015, Ivan Turõgin and Sergei Potapenko promoted their cloud mining service, HashFlare.io, which was launched by their company HashCoins OU. Throughout its existence, HashFlare.io offered five different types of mining contracts to the public – SHA-256 (bitcoin), ETHASH (ether), Scrypt, DASH, and ZCASH.

The government alleges that the HashFlare cloud mining service did not have access to the volume of mining power that was needed to service the amount of mining contracts it sold to the public. The government further alleges that, to enable HashFlare to create the illusion that it was mining bitcoin, Potapenko purchased bitcoin from a third party and distributed it to victims who were requesting withdrawals from their HashFlare account. Eventually, the HashFlare cloud mining service was substantially terminated in July of 2018, and Turõgin and Potapenko used the remaining funds for their personal benefit.

In 2017, while HashFlare was still selling cloud mining contracts to the public, Turõgin, Potapenko, and other affiliates launched an ICO, Polybius, advertising the sale of PLBT tokens. PLBT token buyers were entitled to a 20% dividend from the profits that were generated from the main project Polybius claimed to be developing: a digital bank. The ICO collected approximately $31 million to be used for the creation of the digital bank. The government alleges that, instead of using the proceeds to create a digital bank, Turõgin and Potapenko used a large portion of the proceeds for their own personal benefit.

Please provide a summary of your purchases from HashFlare and withdrawals from HashFlare:


1. Total amount of funds used to purchase hashrate (excluding re-investment or purchases using your dashboard balance):
2. Type of contracts purchased
3. Total amount of withdrawals received:
4. What wallet address(es) did you submit to HashFlare for receiving withdrawals?
5. If you successfully submitted a chargeback request to your bank or credit card company, how much did you receive back?
 

Privacy Act Statement

The FBI is authorized to collect the information on this form by one or more of the following provisions: Title 28, United States Code, sections 533 and 534; Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations, section 0.85; and the Attorney General Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance. The information requested will assist the FBI in providing you with assistance to which crime victims are entitled under federal law. You do not have to provide the requested information; however, failure to do so may hinder the FBI in providing you with crime victim assistance. The information collected on this form is protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, Title 5, United States Code section 552a, and is maintained in the FBI’s Central Records System, DOJ/FBI-002, a description of which was published in the Federal Register at 63 Fed. Reg. 8671 (Feb. 20, 1998) and which may be viewed at www.justice.gov/opcl/doj-systems-records#doj