A father and son claim €130,000 they believed was being invested for them in Citibank was misappropriated in a sophisticated fraud, the High Court has heard.
Paul McCarthy, from Graigcullen, Carlow Town, and his father Callaghan McCarthy transferred the money in March 2023 to a bank account held by a company through which Philip Andrews, of Clermont Manor, Blackrock, Co Louth, was the beneficiary, it is alleged.
It is claimed that it was held out to the McCarthys that the money was being invested by an individual or individuals employed by Citibank.
On Friday, Judge Siobhan Stack granted Jarlath Ryan, for the McCarthys, an order freezing the assets of Andrews and Pridolian below €130,000.
The application was made with only the McCarthy side represented.
In an affidavit, Paul McCarthy said that between March 10th and 27th, 2023, they made transfers to an AIB bank account number provided by…
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