UAE Nabs WhiteRock Founder in $30M ZKasino Crypto Scam – Another Rug Pull Unraveled

Dubai authorities just handed crypto scammers a reality check. The founder of WhiteRock—once a golden child of blockchain gaming—got cuffed in a dramatic takedown over the ZKasino rug pull. Here’s how the $30 million scheme collapsed.

The Play: High Stakes, Higher Greed

ZKasino promised decentralized gambling thrills. Investors piled in, lured by WhiteRock’s glossy promises. Then—poof—funds vanished faster than a Bitcoin bull run evaporates on bad CPI news.

The Fallout: UAE Doesn’t Play Nice

Unlike regulators who move at ‘block time,’ UAE enforcement slammed the gavel. Extradition talks? Frozen. Asset seizures? Already underway. Lesson: even crypto’s wild west has sheriffs now.

Cynical Finance Jab: Another day, another ‘decentralized’ project centralized enough for someone to pocket the treasury. At least this one came with a free Interpol workout.

ZKasino Fall Out Continues After a Year

ZKasino, a famous rug pull scam, led to millions of losses for its users and a string of subsequent investigations. Last month, crypto sleuth ZachXBT made serious allegations about WhiteRock (WHITE), claiming blockchain data linked it to ZKasino.

Today, it looks like these claims had weight, as local authorities arrested WhiteRock founder Ildar Ilham in the UAE:

“The authorities of the UAE have informed the Netherlands that they have arrested a suspect in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. The man was wanted internationally for involvement in large-scale fraud surrounding the alleged gambling platform ZKasino,” the local authorities’ press release claimed.

The UAE will also extradite Ilham to the Netherlands to face fraud charges. The country is already prosecuting key ZKasino members, so it makes sense to MOVE WhiteRock’s founder to this jurisdiction.

As of yet, authorities haven’t unveiled any new criminal evidence, but the suspicious on-chain connections between these companies were evidently revealing.

Now that explicit ties between WhiteRock and ZKasino are coming to light, the community is redoubling its efforts to delist WHITE.

Several prominent exchanges, such as MEXC and Gate.io, drew a lot of flak for listing it in the first place. None of these exchanges have made any announcements yet, but WHITE still dropped over 30%:

Ultimately, the opaque nature of this whole situation between ZKasino and WhiteRock has led to confusion and speculation. It’s unclear what exactly prompted the UAE to arrest Ilham, like if there’s new off-chain evidence directly connecting him to the rug pull.

Hopefully, upcoming criminal proceedings in the Netherlands will help fully elucidate these connections.