Ethlot.me Ethereum Mining ‘Scam Mastermind’ Flees South Korea for the Philippines

cryptonews.com:

The alleged leader of what police believe to be a ethereum (ETH) mining scam masquerading as a bona fide “pool” has fled abroad.

Per Yonhap, officers said that a man, aged 44 but not identified for legal reasons, had left the country in late June – around the time that the police began to investigate the “pool.” Named Ethlot.me, the “pool” claimed to allow investors the chance to buy ethereum and bitcoin (BTC) mining rigs, which a firm named Ethlot would operate on their behalf in overseas mining centers. These centers, they claimed, were mainly located in Kazakhstan and Russia.

The “pool” published numerous videos and pictures of these “mining centers” in operation.

The company, which has a brick-and-mortar office in Seoul’s Seocho District, has failed to respond to multiple Cryptonews.com contact requests. The telephone numbers associated with the company also appear to be unmanned.

Ethlot.me’s operators promised investors a “guaranteed income” on a sliding scale – the more they invested, they were told, the better-quality machines they would be able to buy.

Anyone stumping up USD 6,225 could expect to make almost USD 120 per day, the pool’s marketing material detailed. Smaller-scale investors could expect to make USD 32 a day from a one-off USD 2,333 investment, the company claimed.

But when these “guaranteed gains” failed to materialized, angry investors attempted to recoup their funds – only for the company to abruptly pull the plug on its website and most of its social media channels.

The Ethlot.me Instagram and YouTube pages are still online – although neither have been updated in the past few months.

The pool’s marketing efforts were well-funded and aggressive – and included advertisements displayed on South Korean