Google Accused Crypto Fraudsters of Hurting Integrity of Company

Google accuses the two scammers – an app developer based in Shenzhen, China, and another based in Hong Kong – of creating apps purporting to be legitimate cryptocurrency trading and investing platforms. The lawsuit alleges that the fraudsters tricked Google into accepting their apps on its app store, Google Play, by misrepresenting their identity, location and intent.

And every time Google realized one of the apps was a scam and shut it down, the scammers found a way to create and upload another one to Google Play, resulting in a total of 87 fake apps of cryptography.

The company claims that the two men would promote their apps in YouTube videos and through SMS campaigns, convincing their victims to invest money through the app and not allowing them to withdraw it even after the victims made apparent financial gains.

Google alleges that the scammers not only took advantage of the company’s innocent customers, but also exploited Google, costing it more than $75,000 in expenses and resources dedicated to investigating the scams.

And Google is angry that these scammers have made it look bad – the company mentions the “integrity” of its platforms a dozen times throughout the process.

“By using Google Play to conduct their fraudulent scheme, defendants threatened the integrity of Google Play and the user experience,” the lawsuit states. “Defendant’s scheme thus damaged Google users’ trust in Google, its services and its platforms.”

A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that the company is committed to eliminating fraud and that this lawsuit is just the beginning.

“Keeping people safe online is core to our business, and we will not tolerate the misuse of our platforms to facilitate cryptocurrency scams,” Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado told BI. “This litigation is a crucial step in holding these bad actors accountable and sending a clear message that we will aggressively pursue those who seek to take advantage of our users.”