The police in Croatia presented at a press conference the details of the extensive criminal investigation related to Luka Burazer and Eugen Travalja, who were arrested on suspicion of defrauding a large number of citizens who invested in and traded in cryptocurrencies.
After several months of complex criminal investigation into the fraud committed against a large number of citizens, three Croatian citizens aged 30, 36 and 37 were suspected. They were the director, procurator and employee of the company in the Rijeka area. They are suspected of having misled a large number of clients by misrepresenting and lying, reported Blaženka Čačić, head of the General Crime Service at the Primorsko-Goranska Police Department.
“The perpetration of fraud resulted in material damage estimated at at least 18.5 million euros,” it was said.
Čačić said that the three were arrested yesterday in the morning at their residential addresses.
According to the order of the investigating judge of the County Court in Rijeka, the homes and personal cars of the suspects were searched and their computers, IT equipment and documentation related to the commission of the described criminal acts were confiscated.
“During the search, certain cold wallets and devices were found that will be used to continue the research. The investigation will provide answers to the questions of how much money is on them and if there is any money on them at all. We can’t say anything about it yet,” it was said.
The police said that the proceedings will determine how much the investors were deprived of.
When asked about possible compensation for damage to citizens, the police replied that the money will be returned if it is in the account, if not, citizens will have to ask for the money in private proceedings.
Police said they have several experts who have received training on cryptocurrency scams.
They also stated that there are about 250 injured parties, but that new reports are coming in every day.
Answering the journalist’s questions, she said that those arrested did not report that they had received threats, and that their company was not registered to carry out cryptocurrency trading activities.
As explained by the head of the Criminal Intelligence Service, Željko Fagnjen, the suspects founded a trading company with a premeditated intention to trade cryptocurrency.
They persuaded people to invest through their company by buying various cryptocurrencies under the pretext that their value is increasing and the profit is high. They persuaded interested parties to invest, advertised, and looked for customers, reports HRT.
They advised citizens to open their own crypto wallets or to pay a certain amount to certain crypto wallets, drew up contracts, and over time they transferred the money to their crypto wallets, spent it, while returning part of the money to citizens in order to keep them in the wrong.
Their company stopped operating when citizens, because they couldn’t get their money, filed criminal charges.
Three suspects were interrogated on Wednesday at the Municipal State Attorney’s Office in Rijeka, and in the afternoon they should be brought to the investigative judge of the County Court in Rijeka, who will decide on custody.
“Many people were injured, mostly young people. They lost a lot of money because they wanted to make money on cryptocurrencies,” said HTV journalist Blanka Kukec for the Dnevnik.
“Allegedly, one client borrowed as much as 500,000 euros in order not to profit. Most of them filed criminal charges against the owners of the now-defunct company BitLucky, because they had not heard from them since the end of May this year,“ she added.
Luka Burazer and Eugen Travalja, the owners of the failed cryptocurrency trading company BitLucky, were arrested yesterday, and today they were questioned at the State Attorney’s Office. In the afternoon, they should be brought before the investigating judge of the County Court in Rijeka. They are suspected of defrauding investors worth tens of millions of euros.
The vast majority filed a criminal complaint, said the lawyer of the injured party, Andrej Bašović, and added that other injured parties can also come forward and join the criminal proceedings.
“Realistically, now the criminal proceedings have just started in the full sense, that is, with the adoption of a decision on conducting the investigation,” said Bašović.
Investors of the cryptocurrency trading company BitLucky warned at the end of August that this case has been going on for months, pointing out that it is the biggest crypto fraud in this region. Burazer last contacted them by e-mail on May 18, informing them that he had “brought the company into a state of crisis”. Since then, all traces of him have been lost, but on July 30 he gave an interview to Jutarnji list in which he rejected the accusations, but did not reveal his location, reports HRT.
