Crypto Scam App Earned Over $5 Million Before Google Blocked It, Lawsuit Claims

Florida resident Maria Vaca has sued Google for $5 million in damages for failing to remove a scam app from the Google Play Store on time. Vaca claims she lost over $5 million due to the scam app.

The app in question is called Yobit Pro a cryptocurrency app that was scamming people out of their money. Vaca had invested $4.6 million into the app and once her balance was raised to $7 million she attempted to withdraw her money. But while withdrawing the money, Yobit Pro asked Vaca to pay $500,000 in “taxes.”

Vaca made the deposit, but before withdrawing the money, she was asked to spend another $2 million to get her money, at which point she knew something was wrong. When Vaca refused to pay the money, she says she was contacted by the unidentified cyber-criminals who threatened to kill her if she didn’t invest the money.

Vaca then contacted law enforcement as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which forwarded the complaint to Google. Vaca says that she was using Yobit Pro because she believed Google was not allowing scam apps on the Play Store. The lawsuit states:

As a result of Google’s material misrepresentations and other deceptive conduct, Ms. Vaca has been significantly damaged, including, but not limited to, financial losses of more than $5 Million, severe emotional and psychological distress, and the loss of the real estate business she spent most of her adult life trying to build.

The damages are not limited to Vaca either as the lawsuit alleges that over 12,000 other Android users also installed the Yobit Pro app and at least 5 of them had a similar experience. The lawsuit blames Google for taking too long to take action against the app.

The tech giant’s lawsuit explicitly recognizes the damage inflicted on the Google Play Store’s standing due to the presence of these fraudulent apps and it says that the company is actively working on removing such apps from its platform.