Dutch authorities arrest suspect in ZKasino gambling scam, seize $12.2 million in assets

The Netherlands’ Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) announced the arrest of a 26-year-old suspected to be involved in the ZKasino decentralized gambling platform scam.

Meanwhile, speculations within the crypto community suggest that the arrested person could potentially be the pseudonymous founder of the platform known as Derivatives Monke.

Asset seizures

In the wake of the arrest, Dutch authorities revealed the seizure of assets, including digital assets, real estate, and luxury vehicles, worth around 11.4 million euros ($12.2 million).

Meanwhile, this arrest signals a pivotal development in the ZKasino fraud case, in which investors suffered losses exceeding $33 million in Ethereum. The platform initially pledged a 30-day investment return guarantee but later diverted users’ ETH to the Ethereum-based liquid staking protocol Lido.

According to Dutch authorities, the platform’s smart contract configuration strongly indicated that it did not intend to refund the funds.

FIOD added:

“During the investigation the FIOD worked closely with staff from the Financial Crime Compliance and Investigations Team of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which helped secure millions of euros in cryptocurrencies.”

Simultaneously, Dutch authorities assured the stolen funds would be restituted to the victims. However, they underscored the importance of victim cooperation and encouraged the sharing of any pertinent information to aid ongoing investigations.

Community celebrates

Members of the crypto community on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) have expressed satisfaction with news of the arrest, viewing it as a significant stride towards recovering their funds and attaining justice.

Concurrently, the perusal of a chat group established by ZKasino victims showed a collective willingness to collaborate with law enforcement agencies. Notably, they are already anticipating that the authorities would secure the arrest of other culprits.

A user identified as Pursuit of Profit on Telegram said.

“The Dutch intelligence service are monsters! The best out there, now that they got him in custody and seized his electronic devices, they will locate every one of them involved in the scam based on digital footprints from communications etc. Just wait for it.”