Turkish authorities have arrested Andreas Szakacs, a Swedish national implicated in orchestrating the OmegaPro cryptocurrency scam. The operation, estimated to have defrauded investors of approximately $4 billion, has drawn widespread attention for its scale and complexity.

OmegaPro, a platform that operated under the guise of a legitimate investment opportunity, was structured similarly to a Ponzi scheme. In this model, funds from new investors were used to pay returns to earlier participants, creating a deceptive illusion of profitability. This strategy ensured the scheme’s sustainability for a time, even as it concealed its fraudulent nature.

According to an August 21 report by Turkiye Today, Szakacs, who had assumed the alias Emre Avci upon relocating to Turkey, was apprehended following a tip-off from an anonymous informant. The informant’s information led authorities to a villa in Istanbul, where Szakacs was arrested on July 9. Abdul Ghaffar Mohageh, a Dutch national representing around 3,000 victims who collectively lost $103 million in the scam, further validated the arrest. Mohageh himself had invested $7 million.

OmegaPro closed after it ceased fund withdrawals in November 2022 and eventually shut down entirely by July 2023. The scheme’s collapse left many investors unable to access their money, leading to widespread financial losses and distress among its clientele.

In addition to Szakacs’s arrest, the Turkish Gendarmerie noted that 16 local users of the OmegaPro app had been identified. These individuals reported that initial investments appeared to generate quick returns, leading to increased deposits. However, when investors attempted to withdraw their funds, their accounts were emptied, exposing the fraudulent nature of the operation.

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Notably, the OmegaPro scam shares striking similarities with OneCoin, another major cryptocurrency fraud involving losses estimated at $4 billion. Both schemes utilized deceptive practices to attract and maintain investor confidence while systematically siphoning funds. In June 2024, the U.S. State Department increased the reward for information leading to the capture of OneCoin’s founder, Ruja Ignatova, who has been in hiding since 2017, to $5 million.

In September 2023, Carl Sebastian Greenwood, a key figure in the OneCoin scheme, was sentenced to 20 years and fined $300 million. Earlier this year, Irina Dilkinska, the former head of legal and compliance at OneCoin, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $111 million by a U.S. court.

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In the wake of the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF approvals, there’s been a lot of speculation about which crypto might be next. Already, a handful of names have been suggested, including all of the usual suspects: XRP, Solana (SOL 9.57%), Cardano, Litecoin, and Avalanche.

Of these, Solana has the best chance of getting a spot ETF. In fact, this could happen as early as January 2025. From my perspective, there are two key factors that make this likely to happen.

Market demand

In terms of market cap, Solana ranks fifth among all major cryptocurrencies. That’s a huge determining factor, because market cap can be useful as a proxy for investor demand. As a general rule of thumb, Wall Street isn’t going to launch a product if there isn’t sufficient demand for it, so it’s worth looking into how much demand is coming from both retail and institutional investors.

At the end of June, crypto investment firm GSR ran the numbers and concluded that Solana trailed only Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of overall demand. The firm’s “demand analysis” took into account three key factors: (1) market cap and overall trading volume, (2) assets under management of investment products already in the marketplace, and (3) size, activity, and reach of the online community for a specific token. Across all of these metrics, Solana outpaced rivals XRP, Cardano, and Avalanche.

There’s also great data available from CoinShares, which tracks institutional investor inflows into and out of the major cryptocurrencies. According to its latest report from early August, Solana still has a clear lead over major rivals such as XRP, Cardano, and Litecoin in terms of year-to-date inflows. That being said, investor inflows into both Bitcoin and Ethereum dwarf anything that’s happening with Solana right now.

Regulatory outlook

Of course, there’s no way that a Solana ETF is going to be approved if regulators have any doubts over whether Solana might actually be a security. This was the one factor that was hanging over Solana during much of the past year. But at the end of July, the SEC appeared to back down from its earlier stance when it acknowledged that it would no longer be looking into Solana as a potential security. If you’re hoping for a Solana ETF, that’s exactly what you want to see happen.

Moreover, it’s important to keep an eye on what’s happening in other financial markets, beyond the borders of the U.S. For example, in August, Brazilian regulators approved a spot Solana ETF. If that performs well in Brazil, then it could make it much easier to approve a U.S. version of the ETF. And, indeed, investment firm VanEck — one of only two firms that have already submitted a spot Solana ETF application to the SEC — now says that a Solana ETF is “inevitable.” I wouldn’t go that far, but it is looking good right now for Solana.

What to look for in 2024

As we saw from the recent market mini-crash in early August, there’s still quite a bit of volatility in the crypto market. Any sustained sell-off over the next few months would likely push back the launch date of a Solana ETF, simply due to the lack of investor demand for the product. Moreover, the SEC is unlikely to sign off on much of anything if the crypto market is showing signs of weakness, or if demand dries up for existing crypto ETFs.

So keep your eye on the overall health of the crypto market, as well as investor inflows into the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. If the trend is positive, then I’m much more bullish on a spot Solana ETF launching in early 2025. And if pro-crypto sentiment gains hold in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, then I would be even more bullish.

That being said, Solana is a high-risk, high-upside crypto investment. So if you are thinking about investing in Solana, make sure you do your due diligence. Investing in a Solana ETF would help to mitigate some of this risk, but it can’t eliminate the risk of holding Solana entirely.

Zhang is first economic crime suspect Bangkok has extradited to China since their 1999 treaty took effect

A Malaysian businessman accused of leading a fraud syndicate has been extradited from Thailand to China in a case involving more than 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion).

He is the first suspect in an economic crime that Bangkok has turned over to China since an extradition treaty between the two countries took effect in 1999, according to the Chinese public security ministry on Friday.

“The successful extradition … is of landmark significance to the consolidation and deepening of law enforcement and judicial cooperation between China and Thailand,” the ministry said in the release, calling the move a “major achievement”.

The ministry said the suspect was sent to China on Tuesday and only gave the man’s surname: Zhang. This was a reference to Zhang Yufa, better known as Tedy Teow Wooi Huat, the founder of the business conglomerate MBI Group.

Following an investigation, Teow is suspected of running a pyramid scheme and defrauding people, many of them thought to be Chinese nationals, out of money by tricking them into purchasing MBI’s unlicensed and unrecognised cryptocurrency.

More than 10 million investors have fallen prey to the scheme since 2012, and the money involved was worth over 100 billion Chinese yuan, according to the ministry’s statement.

Authorities in the southwest Chinese megacity of Chongqing launched an investigation into Teow in late 2020, and months later the China bureau of the International Criminal Police Organisation issued a worldwide wanted notice for him.

Thai police arrested the businessman in July 2022 after he fled Malaysia. Following that, Beijing submitted a request to Bangkok seeking to have him deported to stand trial in China.

A Thai court issued a final ruling to transfer Teow to China in May, a decision later supported by the Thai government.

Kuala Lumpur had also sought Teow’s deportation to Malaysia, where he is also wanted for fraud. But their request was made after China’s.

MBI Group, which describes itself as having “diversified interests in resources and management developments”, made headlines in October 2019 when about 100 Chinese nationals staged a demonstration outside Beijing’s embassy in Malaysia claiming they had lost their life savings to the firm

The Chinese government has characterised Teow’s case as “extraordinary” and expected the handover of the suspect to set a “positive example” for future extradition cooperation between China and other countries.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi called for intensified transnational cooperation to combat cross-border crimes in the region, especially online gambling and telecoms fraud, when meeting his counterparts from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar during the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) forum in the Thai city of Chiang Mai last week.

Wang said that the four countries had undertaken many collaborative operations and arrested over 50,000 suspects in gambling and fraud cases since last year.

The foreign ministers of all six countries under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism, which also includes Cambodia and Vietnam, reached a joint statement on strengthening cooperation in combating transnational crime during the gathering.

“We are deeply concerned about the gravity and seriousness of the persistent and escalating threats posed by transboundary crimes,” the statement said.

“We urge member countries to prioritise cooperation in the areas of anti-drug trafficking as well as curbing telecommunication/online frauds and all kinds of online gambling,” it added, calling all six nations to work together to improve information sharing and border controls.