After months of missing, Kevin Mirshahi is found dead in Île-de-la-Visitation park in Montreal, Canada. As per the Montreal Gazette report, Kevin was found by a passerby at 10 A.M. on October 30, 2024. On DNA tests, the reports confirmed that the decomposing remains indeed were of his, finally putting an end to the search hunt. More importantly, the Montreal police had already arrested Joanie Lepage, 32, in August for first-degree murder of Keven and abduction of four, including him. However, it is not clear whether the crimes were related to crypto or not, but an investigation reveals he was targeted by the local gangs about his financial dealings.
Even crypto scams are rising heavily, which is concerning investors. Just a few days ago, the police arrested 215 people for $232M crypto fraud.
Who Was Kevin Mirshahi?
Kevin Mirshahi was a 25-year-old crypto influencer who had a decent fan following among investors. The deceased, along with three others, were abducted on June 21 from a condo in Old Montreal. Thankfully, the three were located within a few hours and were found safe. However, Kevin was missing for months before his decomposing remains were found in a Montreal park recently.
Kevin was running the Crypto Paradise Island, a Telegram channel with 2300 members. All these people took crypto investment advice from him in return for monthly fees. Many of the group members appreciated his advice, as many made gains with his association. However, he was prohibited from continuing his business due to his involvement in a pump-and-dump scam. He was not even allowed to post any investment advice since 2021.
Even Kevin Mirshahi himself has acknowledged his mistake of promoting the MRS token. He pointed out that his biggest mistake was hiring the wrong influencer to promote the token and paying them in crypto. It is because two major holders dumped all their MRS tokens, collapsing the crypto, and putting all the legal troubles on the deceased.
We were really stupid. We made two major mistakes. The first was hiring influencers without doing any verification. The second was paying them in cryptocurrencies since that could be seen as an incentive to drive up the price.
However, despite the ban, Le Journal de Montréal revealed that he had been running the Telegroup and promoting cryptos with a pseudo name, Amir. This entire crypto scam incident came to light after the Newspaper Marson posted about this in April 2021. Later, MRS creator Antoine Marsan and Kevin Mirshahi had to go through an AMF investigation.
2024 Witnessed 18 Similar Crypto Crimes
As per the co-founder and Chief Security Officer of Casa, Jameson Lopp, this year alone, 18 other crypto crimes have taken place, where people have been physically assaulted, abducted, and even killed. Just a week before discovering the Kevin Mirshahi body, the WonderFI CEO, Dean Skurka, was kidnapped in Toronto. He had to $720,660 to save himself from the situation.
Similarly, a Ukrainian traveler had to transfer 250K USD to a friend’s hotel. At that time, he was traveling in Thailand and decided to join his friend. However, two masked men made him transfer his crypto holding. Now, the fear has shifted from online thefts and fraud to real-life crypto crimes.
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