ChainCatcher reported that according to Cointelegraph, two founders of the now-defunct cloud mining company Hashflare were arrested in Estonia and accused of being involved in cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering, involving a total amount of $575 million. It is reported that HashFlare was founded in 2015 and claimed to allow customers to rent the company's hash value in order to mine cryptocurrencies and obtain an equal share of profits. In July 2018, Hashflare announced that it was forced to terminate all Bitcoin mining contracts due to unprofitable business.

According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice citing court documents, the entire mining operation operated by Hashflare founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin "defrauded hundreds of thousands of victims," ​​including convincing victims to sign "fraudulent equipment rental contracts" through HashFlare and convincing other victims to invest in a fake virtual currency bank called Polybius Bank. (Cointelegraph)