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Accusations that Selena Gomez duped investors into putting $1.2 million into mental health startup Wondermind are baseless, the star’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, says after Gomez was named in a lawsuit filed Thursday (Aug. 13). Rosengart will be filing a motion to dismiss claims made in the suit.
On Saturday (Aug. 15), the litigator denied allegations made against Gomez in the statement seen below, which was first published by People. Billboard independently verified the statement with Rosengart.
“The allegations that Selena Gomez engaged in any way whatsoever in any purported ‘fraud’ or other wrongdoing are completely meritless, both factually and legally. We will vigorously defend these…
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