The post Citibank Ignored Signs Of $20M Crypto Scam, Lawsuit Claims appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Citibank has been sued by a self-claimed victim of a crypto romance scam, alleging the bank ignored red flags that allowed scammers to make off with $20 million.  In a lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, plaintiff Michael Zidell alleged Citibank turned “a blind eye to its statutory duties and obligations” when it allowed him to deposit millions of dollars to scammers who have accounts at the bank. Zidell said he sent $20 million to scammers through dozens of transactions across multiple banks, including nearly $4 million to accounts they held at Citibank. The complaint said the transactions were part of an elaborate romance scam, commonly called pig butchering, where scammers use a fake persona to build a romantic online relationship with a victim, using it to entice them into a fraudulent investment scheme.  Facebook romance led to scam NFT investments Zidell said the scam started in early 2023 when he was contacted on Facebook by a “Carolyn Parker,” a purported business owner with whom he had a “friendly, social relationship, but later perceived a romantic one developing.” A month into the relationship, Parker told Zidell he should invest in non-fungible tokens, as she claimed she’d made millions doing so and directed him to a trading platform. Zidell decided to invest in the NFTs and made transfers to various bank accounts given to him by the trading platform. He was told multiple banks were needed due to a large volume of customer deposits.  A highlighted excerpt of the complaint claims Zidell sent the allegedly fraudulent platform, OpenrarityPro, over $20 million. Source: CourtListener He said that over the next few months, he sent 43 transfers totalling over $20 million to various bank accounts, but by late April, the website for the platform “was all of a sudden gone”…

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Filed under: News - @ June 26, 2025 8:30 pm