Maria Vaca, a Florida resident, has filed a lawsuit against Google claiming that an app she downloaded from the Play Store resulted in the theft of her crypto assets worth millions.
Specifically, she presumed the malicious application to be a crypto wallet.
Vaca diverted around $4.6 million to crypto assets in the period between February and July of 2023 'Yobit Pro.'
As soon as her investment was up to $7 million, she tried withdrawing the funds. However, she was notified that she needed to deposit an additional $500,000 on the pretext of taxes.
She made the transfer. Right after, the app requested an additional $2 million, giving rise to suspicion.
When the user declined to pay the additional amount, she allegedly received messages on WhatsApp from the unidentified cyber-criminals “threatening to kill her if she did not make a deposit."
Subsequently, she got in touch with the law enforcement and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB].
The agency forwarded the complaint to Google the same day. However, in the lawsuit, Vace alleged that Google took a whole quarter to remove the app from the Play Store.
Now, she is claiming at least $5 million in damages to make up for the losses she incurred.
The filing noted,
“As a result of Google’s material misrepresentations and other deceptive conduct… Vaca has been significantly damaged, including, but not limited to, financial losses of more than $5 million, severe emotional and psychological distress, and the loss of the real estate business she spent most of her adult life trying to build.”
In the lawsuit, Vaca contended that she downloaded the app because she was under the impression that Google prevents scam apps from being listed on its Play Store.
Her lawyers further underlined that around 12,759 other Android device users installed Yobit Pro on their devices, and at least five of them had similar experiences to that of their client.
Chris Vernon, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff said,
“The crypto world has reasons for avoiding banking and securities regulation, but immediate and significant efforts need to be made to establish a system of supervision and compliance to reduce this epic transfer of wealth outside the US. In the interim, lawsuits such as the one we filed this week help drive that process.”
He further emphasized that this case is part of a larger trend in which crypto is “one of the key tools” used to con people and siphon funds.
