Sina Estavi, founder of Malaysian startup Bridge Oracle, who bought Jack Dorsey’s first tweet token for $ 2.5 million, was arrested in Iran on fraud charges.
On behalf of Sina Estavi, it was tweeted that the account holder was arrested under a ruling from Iran’s Special Economic Crimes Court for disrupting the country’s economic system. This tweet was deleted several hours later.
The website of the Center for Investigation of Organized Cybercrimes, a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, also published a message about the arrest of several employees of the Bridge Oracle cryptocurrency project. An investigation against him was initiated nine months ago.
It is not known whether Estavi himself was among the detainees, but local media confirmed his arrest. In addition, the Center said in a statement that the startup Bridge Oracle is illegal and unreliable. Users are advised to exercise caution when interacting with cryptocurrency projects so as not to suffer from the actions of fraudsters who take advantage of people’s financial illiteracy and lack of knowledge about investments.
Estavi also operates the Malaysian cryptocurrency exchange CryptoLand. In March, Estavi won an auction to sell Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first post as a non-fungible token (NFT) against Tron CEO Justin Sun. Estavi likened this tweet to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting, calling it “a piece of human history.” Shortly after purchasing Dorsey’s tweet, Bridge Oracle users began accusing Estavi of fraudulent and misleading investors on Twitter.
In recent months, various accusations have begun to arrive against Estavi. So, in January, Bitcoin.com co-founder Mate Tokay sued Estavi for not being able to pay for his services for consulting on the Bridge project, as well as for using his name to promote this project and the BRG cryptocurrency.
The situation escalated after Iranian cryptocurrency researcher Kave Moshtaq reported that Estavi “set bandits on him” in April to intimidate him outside an Iranian court. Mosztak posted a photo of his bloody face with the note that he was beaten by five motorcyclists. After that, Moshtak went to court, filing a complaint against Estavi.
After receiving many claims against Bridge Oracle, CryptoLand and Estavi himself, the Iranian Blockchain Development Association demanded that Estavi and his prosecutors provide more details and required documents. Now on the CryptoLand website there is a message that access to it is denied, and the BRG rate fell from $ 0.12 to $ 0.02 immediately after the publication of a tweet about Estavi’s arrest.
Recall that in April, employees of the Turkish cryptocurrency exchanges Vebitcoin and Thodex were also arrested on suspicion of fraud.
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