According to ChainCatcher and Cointelegraph, Michael Zidell, a victim of a cryptocurrency "pig butchering" scam, has filed a lawsuit against Citibank in Manhattan Federal Court, alleging that the bank ignored suspicious transaction warnings, resulting in a $20 million fraud. The complaint shows that Zidell transferred funds to multiple bank accounts controlled by scammers through 43 transfers, with nearly $4 million transferred to Citibank's Guju Inc company account.
The "pig butchering" scam began in 2023, with scammers posing as a merchant named "Carolyn Parker" who lured Zidell into investing in Non-Fungible Tokens through Facebook. The complaint points out that Citibank failed to investigate frequent large, round-number transfers, violating anti-money laundering monitoring obligations. When Zidell discovered that the trading platform named OpenrarityPro had suddenly closed, the funds could no longer be recovered.
