A scam that preyed on bitcoin newcomers under the name BTCFlap.com has resurfaced with fresh branding. The operation now calls itself Minerscenter.com and hawks the identical scheme: claiming to buy b
A scam that preyed on bitcoin newcomers under the name BTCFlap.com has resurfaced with fresh branding. The operation now calls itself Minerscenter.com and hawks the identical scheme: claiming to buy bitcoin directly from customers at prices 10 to 12 percent above market rates, with payouts to PayPal accounts. The mechanics depend on stolen PayPal credentials. When the real users report the fraud, PayPal returns their money. Bitcoin, having no such recourse mechanism, stays gone.
Bitcoin scams cross my desk daily, most too small to warrant attention. Alerting the public about marginal operations arguably does more harm than good. But this one matters. The operation moved beyond spam tactics. They placed press releases on MarketWired and Yahoo Finance, sites many readers instinctively trust. They forged business documents. Their reach has expanded, and their methods have sharpened since BTCFlap shuttered.
The GAW Miners case offers perspective. The SEC documented over 10,000 people defrauded there. How many quit cryptocurrency entirely afterward? The cascade effect runs deep. One victim tells friends and family. A dozen people abandon the space based on that single experience. This damage compounds fast.
Minerscenter claims to operate from Wilmington, Delaware as an established bitcoin firm. The pitch always includes vague references to proprietary business methods and a noble mission to serve the community. They say they've accumulated between 15,000 and 17,000 bitcoin. Their customer service representatives mention having kept logs of visitor IP addresses.
The most basic scrutiny reveals cracks. A legitimate company cannot sustain buying bitcoin above market rate. Arbitrage kills such operations instantly. Traders would buy from exchanges at the listed price, resell to the company at their inflated rate, and repeat until the operator's wallet drained. The model works for neither finance nor candy bars.
Their business license came from Chicago. Except their listed address, 919 N. Market Street in Wilmington, doesn't exist. No such street runs through Wilmington. No Market Street either. A company representative claimed they'd relocated from Chicago to Delaware, but that explanation raises its own questions. Why would Chicago issue a finance license to an entity supposedly operating four states away?
A deeper search exposed the forgery. The certificate matches, pixel for pixel, a real Chicago business license issued years earlier to a dog walking service. The creases from folding align perfectly. The date stamps match down to the typography. Someone duplicated the legitimate document and altered details. The name on the forged certificate: Emilian Tourey, allegedly the CEO. Online searches turn up nothing about this person.
Minerscenter and BTCFlap contained identical deposit minimums and maximums: 0.2 bitcoin and 450 bitcoin respectively. More damning, Minerscenter copied entire passages from BTCFlap's defunct website. According to domain records, BTCFlap went offline before Minerscenter launched. An archive.org snapshot confirms it. Someone took a dead scam's playbook and reopened the operation with minor edits.
A reader on CryptoCoinNews had already flagged the connection between the two sites before my investigation began. Others caught wind of it too. SiliconAngle and SatoshiNews both published warnings last month. The group hasn't bothered to create original content.
When I contacted them, their responses turned evasive. The customer service representative's reminder about my IP address felt like intimidation. They deflected questions toward their CEO. I sent an email requesting comment. No substantive reply arrived.
MarketWired and Yahoo Finance's press release sections operate without vetting. They don't claim to investigate submitted content. But readers often assume major platforms maintain standards. A newcomer to cryptocurrency wouldn't necessarily know that these companies publish any paid submission without scrutiny. They might assume such gatekeepers screen for obvious fraud. That assumption costs people.
Their approach grew bolder in execution if not imagination. The website reads more professional than BTCFlap. Grammar improved, though errors remain. Posting a business certificate, authentic-looking or not, signals an attempt at legitimacy. The press releases on established sites provided cover that the earlier version lacked.
A bitcoin address associated with Minerscenter handled 152.15 bitcoin in total volume at the time of reporting. The address: 163P3J3zHXsgura8oQX8M2aM2cx3Rv51Te. On the day of investigation, 0.3 bitcoin passed through it. How much represents genuine stolen funds versus coins moved repeatedly to fabricate transaction history? The source remains unclear. What's certain: the operation continues, money flows in, and new victims arrive.
