Digital Forensic Investigation on Ponzi Schemes

Digital Forensic Investigation on Ponzi Schemes

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연구 분야: Analysis

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학회: International Conference on Information Security, Privacy and Digital Forensics

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초록

The Ponzi scheme is an economic offence to lure investors by giving false assurance of huge returns with less risk. The money is provided to the older investors from the new investors in the form of payouts. Mostly the scheme would collapse or in the verge of collapse when the reduction of new investors. The scheme would try to retain later or the latest customers to reinvest or roll over the payouts into the scheme. Ponzi schemes are also performing as “Smart Ponzi Scheme” [1] where new technology (blockchain) cryptocurrency has been used indirectly. Some Ponzi scheme adopts a hybrid model without the knowledge of investors. Fugazzi financial securities are also given in the form of bonds with some security values, especially payouts are enticed to roll over again. The Ponzi scheme would initially be started and pretend to be a formal and genuine financial business and would certainly know the scheme would collapse. The scheme’s brainchild or brainchildren would counter and prepare for the easy way outs. The accumulated money is invested in real estate, movable properties, Panama papers, gold investments, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts (Cryptocurrency), and offshore investments. The new and the latest investors were victimized a lot. The financial victimization will be more from the new investors to the initial or oldest investors. The fairness of identifying actual financial loss incurred by the investors has to be justified for a fair settlement. The nature of the Ponzi scheme itself is a discrete business and the brainchild/brainchildren behind the scheme have constructed business infrastructure in such a way that they cannot be caught or tracked or detected. They have chosen complex technological infrastructure to make the investigation process difficult. The Ponzi scheme is accomplished by complex infrastructure in a way digital forensics investigation process made so difficult to detect. Ponzi scheme identification and intelligence about people and infrastructure are to be collected properly else the break in the detection chain would end up in fragile evidence collection. Understanding of infrastructure of the Ponzi scheme model is crucial to gather all information and quantifying the actual amount and people who were involved in the Ponzi scheme. The magnitude of the Ponzi scheme scam would only be identified by the proper digital forensic investigation process. This paper discusses the complex infrastructure adopted by the Ponzi schemes. The hurdles and challenges faced by the investigation team and digital forensics Investigation team to detect the magnitude of the scam involved. This paper also addresses the lacuna of policy, enforcement, and regulatory lens on the Ponzi scheme with respect to the existing monitoring system and infrastructure.

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