Miner One! Another ICO Founder Arrested!

Miner One, Failed ICO or Blatant Fraud? Part II

Last week Pranas Slusny, Founder of Miner One, another promising mining company who did a successful ICO back in early 2018 and raised about 5 Mio USD was arrested for fraud. The story sounds familiar. The money is gone and now the people are looking for the mining equipment allegedly bought.

Miner One CEO Responded To FinTelegram Report

On Feb 6, 2019, FinTelegram reported on activities related to the Miner One ICO. At that time, many investors were already concerned over recent events which had them wondering if they had lost their money in a scam.  A response from the CEO, Pranas Slusnys (see LinkedIn profile), was received after the publishing of the article.  He said that the article was inaccurate but did not provide any information that contradicted the report. 

It has now been more than a month since the alleged relocation of the Miner One operating activities to Ukraine began, and there has only been one update provided to the community regarding the status of the move. In a newsletter emailed to the Miner One community on Feb 11, 2019, Pranas Slusnys said:

I take the relocation process very seriously…. There is still work to be done: connecting the power supply, network infrastructure and security measures on site. It seems that our relocation contractor is doing a great job … mining operations to begin as soon as the equipment is set-up at the new location.

Pranas Susnys

Since then the company and its CEO went silent. While there is no information coming from Pranas Slusnys and Miner One, the new investigative website ICO Investigation (www.icoinvestigation.com) started to cover the Miner One Case in great detail. The guys uncovered inconsistencies between what Pranas Slusnys’ statements and the facts. The research team behind the ICO Investigation website tracked the crypto transactions, other players and companies they believe are related to the ICO.

There are more questions than answers concerning the Miner One operations. Meanwhile, Pranas Slusnys turned the official Miner One Telegram channel private and banned investors for asking questions. Moreover, he removed information from the Miner One website and other social media sites concerning team members. Community members and investors are left in the dark. It’s not clear where the mining containers are (if any) and whether or not the Miner One project will survive the crypto winter. It doesn’t look like this.

The Truth About Mining Containers

There is evidence that Miner One has never been operating 12 mining containers as investors were told. Informants provided us with photo footage that shows a sad reality far away from the promising statements presented by the Miner One guys. The pictures were all taken between January 30^th and February 12^th this year. FinTelegram has access to the original pictures with all the EXIF data included. Allegedly, sometime after Feb 12, the containers have been moved away from the side to an undisclosed new location. The interesting point here is that our informants and photographers identified only two containers.

The helicopter view shows an industrial zone near the airport. An expressway connects the area with the city. You can click here (https://binged.it/2u04vjB) to have a look in maps.

From the entrance of the property (which was always open), one cannot see the containers. Actually, not a single soul could be found on the site which is not secured. Hence, entering and taking pictures of the property was not a big deal. A barking dog was the only living soul our photographers saw or heard.

After passing the barrier at the entrance, our photographers went to the far end of the property. The alleged location of the containers is hidden behind the other buildings. After they passed an empty factory building and made a right turn they grasped a first disappointing view at the containers.

Only two containers were actually found but just one that seems to be completed. The one stacked on top of the other looks rather half finished. All these pictures were taken on January 30^th, way before the official announcement of the relocation to Ukraine. We therefore consider it unlikely that the missing 10 mining containers were already in or on their way to Ukraine at that time.

Finally, here is a panoramic picture with the full site in one picture.

No one would even imagine to have 12 containers stacked here, right?

Where is Pranas?

We were also told that investigations by Lithuanian authorities were started around this time back in February. A source close to Lithuanian authorities confirmed the arrest of Pranas Slušnys around the time where his phone went silent. This happened to be last Thursday, March 7th. This sounds reasonable: Pranas’ mobile phone was probably seized and shut off. The business evidently has come to an end and will maybe lead to even more arrests.

Pranas, now most likely detained and will have to explain quite a lot to the authorities. We hope to be able to obtain more information on the legal proceedings in the Miner One case and will provide a respective update.

Another Tragedy For Crypto And ICOs

We can only hope, that the investigation brings light into this (now) criminal case. The best of course would be, if we will hear something about the lost money, so investors are hopefully able to recover (at least) part of their investments.