Montenegrin police have arrested the co-founder of the Polish crypto scam FutureNet, which caused losses estimated at $21 million.
Roman Ziemian was living under an assumed name in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, police said. Ziemian’s arrest warrants were issued by South Korea and his home country of Poland. The authorities in those countries accuse the co-founder of FutureNet of fraud, as well as theft and money laundering. In the Republic of Korea, Ziemian faces life in prison. The Podgorica High Court is set to consider the extradition decision.
Ziemyan co-founded the FutureNet crypto scheme with Stephan Morgenstern in 2018. The project was positioned as a multi-level marketing business with a token called FuturoCoin (FTO). The token currently has no value.
In March 2019, Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKIK) announced that FutureNet may be a Ponzi scheme. The firm sold “participation packages” worth between $10 and $10,000, promising investors profits. In mid-2020, South Korean authorities began investigating FutureNet after receiving complaints from 950 people who lost millions investing in the scheme.
In October 2022, Roman Ziemyan was arrested in Italy, but was later placed under house arrest and soon fled the country. That same month, Stefan Morgenstern was taken into custody in Greece. He was also placed under house arrest and fled to Albania. In August 2023, Albanian authorities tracked down Morgenstern and arrested him. The accused is to be extradited to South Korea, where he faces life imprisonment.
In early August, the Montenegrin Court of Appeal ruled to extradite Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon to South Korea, where he is set to stand trial on fraud charges related to the collapse of the Terra ecosystem.
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