A wave of controversy broke on top of cryptocurrency firm TRON this Monday after videos of Chinese police in its offices began circulating online.
It’s unclear as to where the videos were first published but they were spreading across the cryosphere’s Twitter network like wildfire on Monday afternoon.
Police raids at #Tron offices in Beijing? Additionally, there's many angry people gathered there who are saying things like "Tron is a scam". $trx #trx @justinsuntron pic.twitter.com/qFykQErQu6
— Hayden Otto (@Hayden_Otto) July 8, 2019
In one, a bunch of people is standing around what looks like the entrance to an office. Above a receptionist’s desk hangs the TRON logo. In the midst of all of this is a row of policemen who appear to be protecting the cryptocurrency firm’s office.
Another video shows a woman, who appears to be inside the TRON office, shouting loudly at someone else.
Copy-cats to blame?
All of this has been leaped upon by many people in the cryptocurrency markets, most of whom don’t actually speak Chinese, as evidence of TRON being a scam.
After ignoring these claims for a couple of hours, TRON eventually released a statement saying that the videos did indeed depict their offices.
But the people there, the cryptocurrency company said, had been scammed by a copy-cat firm.
“After communicating with the protesters, employees at Raybo [TRON’s Chinese partner] learned that at least some of the people were deceived by the so-called “Wave Field Super Community” scheme that traded on its similarity to the Chinese-language version of TRON’s name to defraud investors,” the firm said in a statement.
“The victims had been promised high rates of return on their investments in the name of TRON, BitTorrent and uTorrent.”
.@Tronfoundation and @BitTorrent is fine. Everything is fine. We are preparing for #BitTorrentSpeed launch today. Stop spreading fake news and pictures.
— Justin Sun🌞 (@justinsuntron) July 8, 2019
Several outlets have been reporting that victims of the Wave Field Super Community lost $30 million in cash before the fraudsters fled.
TRON’s flamboyant CEO, who has often been attacked as a fraudster, responded to the videos with a tweet, saying that the company is “fine.”
(Photo: Tron)