TL;DR
A fake XRP staking platform operating for only eight days last October stole 3.4 million XRP from 71 investors, according to Seoul police. The assets were valued at 12.3 billion won, or about $8.5 million. Two men, both 29, have been referred to prosecutors on aggravated fraud charges. The scheme compressed extraordinary financial damage into barely more than one week, leaving average losses near 173 million won, or $119,000, per victim. The speed is unsettling because the website disappeared on October 23, shortly after receiving the targeted transfers, before authorities could intervene or warn others.
Police said Fxrpntwork.com impersonated Flare Network and its legitimate FXRP token, promising monthly returns between 1.5% and 1.8% while guaranteeing principal. Investors were allegedly instructed to move XRP away from domestic exchanges, route it through overseas platforms, and deposit it into wallets controlled by the group. The operators did not rely on a single deceptive webpage, but constructed an entire false research environment. Portal blogs, online articles, Wikipedia entries, and YouTube videos were seeded with misleading claims, making independent searches appear to confirm the project’s authenticity across search engines, social platforms, and other public channels.
The campaign reportedly followed the real launch of FXRP one month earlier, exploiting attention surrounding an authentic product to make the counterfeit offer seem timely. Police said a paid 34-year-old stand-in appeared in promotional videos and has also been charged with fraud. Borrowed branding and manufactured testimony transformed familiarity into a weapon against investors. The case shows how criminals can imitate legitimate crypto infrastructure, then surround the imitation with apparently unrelated evidence. By the time victims compared official primary sources with the fabricated online material, the site had closed and its operators had vanished completely.
Investigators traced 27.3 billion won, approximately $18.8 million, through wallets linked to the group, far exceeding confirmed losses from the 71 known victims. Police froze 17.3 billion won at overseas exchanges, while another 10 billion won moved during the investigation and remains unaccounted for. The larger traced amount suggests the known victim list may be incomplete. Authorities executed 54 search and seizure warrants, arrested one suspect after his return from abroad, and detained others sequentially. A fourth 29-year-old man remains overseas under an Interpol Red Notice, and none has yet been tried publicly in court.
