Jorg Molt, a German entrepreneur who claimed he invented Bitcoin and started “Satoshi School,” has been arrested, Bild reports.
The 48-year-old man was nabbed by Bavarian police at Frankfurt Airport just minutes before he was set to board a plane to escape to South America.
Following the arrest, Molt’s Karlsruhe apartment was searched and evidence was found.
The police have also launched an investigation into a 54-year-old woman who was his companion.
Molt allegedly defrauded 50 people of 1.8 million euros ($2.14 million) with his "Bitcoin Pension" project.
The German man—who also happens to be a DJ—was trying to lure investors with his relatively large social media following.
In a nutshell, the plan was to use 60 percent of all investments to buy Bitcoin mining hardware and generate steady returns with a facility based in Sweden. The remaining 40 percent of the funds was supposed to be kept in a safe account. In a worst-case scenario, Molt claimed that the money could be withdrawn from the account at any time.
"Bitcoin Pension" closed its doors in 2020 after many community members started calling it out for being an alleged scam.
Over the course of the investigation, it transpired that the self-proclaimed Satoshi never intended to invest the Bitcoin he received into mining.
Even if there were no malicious intent on Molt’s parts, his venture clearly lacked a viable business model to deliver on its lofty promises.
Alex DovbnyaAnother Faketoshi
As reported by U.Today, Molt got his 15 minutes of fame back in November 2019 after he had an angry confrontation with cryptocurrency commentator Kenneth Bosak at World Crypto Con in Las Vegas.
Multiple prominent crypto personalities took the German DJ to task after he joined the list of self-proclaimed Bitcoin creators. Molt also claimed that he personally owned 250,000 BTC.
Apparently, a German person called "Jorg Molt" has been showing a selfie taken with me and telling people that we are friends
— Andreas (BEWARE of giveaway scams!) (@aantonop) November 3, 2019
This is a LIE. I don't know him at all.
I have heard from others that he claims to be the founder of Bitcoin and has thousands of BTC. A LIE. pic.twitter.com/Bh97AZfvS5
Famous YouTuber Andreas Antonopoulos denied knowing Molt after the latter started spreading lies about their friendship.
Meanwhile, some dug up a video of Molt’s ex-wife, in which he revealed that the German Faketoshi didn’t even own a computer when Satoshi’s Bitcoin white paper was published.
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Arman Shirinyan
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov