Fake staking site drains $8.5 million in XRP from dozens of investors promising easy yield

A fake Flare Network staking site robbed 71 investors of 3.4 million $XRP worth roughly $8.5 million last year, Seoul police said.

Two men were detained on aggravated fraud charges and a third alleged scammer is on the loose, South Korean news outlet Chosun reported Thursday.

Authorities said investigations are ongoing as they believe the scam is much larger than they have been able to prove so far, adding that the scammers might have robbed up to $19 million worth of $XRP, Chosun stated.

The Cyber Crime Investigation Unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police said the scammers ran the fake investment site from Oct. 16 to Oct. 23 and tricked victims into believing that if they deposited “Rippke, you will receive a return of 1.5% to 1.8% every month,” Chosun said.

Police officials investigating the case said the alleged scammers created the fraudulent website using the name of a genuine blockchain project. They then disseminated false advertising through Naver blogs, online news articles, Wikipedia and YouTube, the news outlet said.

Flare Network, which has deep roots in the $XRP ecosystem, debuted in early 2023 announcing it was driving the development of real-world applications. The network reported over $160 million in total value locked as of late March 2026, with more than 887,000 active addresses.

Police have obtained an arrest warrant and requested an Interpol Red Notice for the third accomplice who is still at-large at an unknown overseas location, according to Korea JoonAng Daily.

“We will strictly respond to cyber frauds involving cryptocurrency under a zero-tolerance policy,” a police official said, urging investors to exercise caution against unverified investment claims, the daily added.

Crypto analytics firm Chainalysis said in January that as much as $17 billion in crypto was lost globally to scams and frauds in 2025. Criminals increasingly leaned into impersonation tactics and artificial intelligence to industrialize the way they hunt victims, the firm added.