The Estonian Artists’ Association (EKL), together with an expert commission consisting of art historians, critics and art?market specialists, selected the works that will go to an emergency auction to partially cover the financial damage caused by a fraud scheme. The auction will also include 124 newly donated works from artists.
In addition to the donated works, pieces from the Artists’ Association art collection will go under the hammer. These works were mainly acquired from well?known Estonian authors who have exhibited at spring and autumn exhibitions. When making the selection, the working group considered both recent developments in the art market and the principle of preserving the substantive integrity of the union’s art collection, which reflects the diversity of Estonian art life. The entire collection will not be auctioned.
At least one valuable work from each author…
THE HASHFLARE “CLOUD MINING” PONZI SCHEME (GLOBAL/ESTONIA)
Date: February 13, 2025 (Guilty Pleas) Perpetrators: Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin
Case Description: This $577 million cryptocurrency fraud remains one of the largest digital asset scams in history, with major legal developments concluding in 2025. Potapenko and Turogin operated “Hashflare,” which they marketed as a massive cryptocurrency mining operation. Hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide purchased “mining contracts,” believing they were renting hash power to mine Bitcoin. In reality, the duo was running a sophisticated Ponzi scheme.
They created fake customer dashboards that showed “real-time” mining profits, but the money being paid out was simply the capital of newer investors. They laundered the proceeds through shell companies to purchase luxury real estate and a fleet of high-end vehicles. After a massive international investigation involving the FBI and Estonian authorities, the pair agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. This case underscores the “Cyber-enabled Fraud” warning issued by the FATF in early 2026: as technology evolves, the scale of fraud moves from local millions to global billions in the blink of an eye.
Link to Original: ACFE – High Profile Fraud of 2025