In a press release on Friday, the Netherlands Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) revealed that it arrested a 26-year-old male on April 29 on suspicion of money laundering, embezzlement, and fraud.
The authorities searched the Dutch national’s residence, seizing assets worth more than €11.4m ($12m), such as a luxury car, real estate, and cryptocurrency. It said that further arrests could be in the cards.
Raising suspicions
The FIOD started looking into ZKasino on April 25 after receiving complaints from people who invested in the blockchain casino project. Investigators worked closely with cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s Financial Crime Compliance and Investigations team to freeze funds.
The FIOD intends to return the money to the victims if they cooperate with the investigation. A Telegram group named “ZKasino Legal Task Force” was set up by people impacted by the scam; the FIOD posted in the channel when the arrest was made.
Investors began to question the legitimacy of ZKasino shortly after the network went live on April 20. More than 10,000 investors had invested 10,515 ETH ($33m) on the promise of earning rewards for their locked-up funds.
The platform’s owners swapped the ETH with its $ZKAS tokens, which they put into the Lido staking protocol. The website also no longer showed a statement saying investors would be guaranteed to receive their returns in ETH. Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges quickly moved to cancel their plans to list the $ZKAS token over these suspicious actions.
