Hanoi police investigate the AntEx project related to Shark Binh

The Hanoi City Police are investigating allegations related to the cryptocurrency project AntEx – a project that was once promoted in connection with entrepreneur Nguyễn Hòa Bình, Chairman of NextTech Group, who is commonly known as Shark Bình.

At the press conference on the afternoon of October 6, Colonel Nguyen Duc Long, Deputy Director of the Hanoi City Police, stated that the authorities had received numerous reports from individuals and the media regarding the case of "investing in virtual currency related to the AntEx blockchain project." Specialized units, including the Criminal Police Department, the Economic Police Department, and the Cybersecurity Department, have been instructed to investigate, gather evidence, and verify the information.

The police have received at least one report from an investor in Ninh Binh, stating that they contributed 2,000 USD to the AntEx project before the project collapsed. Colonel Long affirmed, "all complaints are received and processed according to regulations, without exception, and there are no prohibited areas."

Shark Bình## The AntEx project and a 2.5 million USD investment

AntEx was launched in September 2021, promoted as a comprehensive DeFi ecosystem with the VNDT stablecoin pegged to the Vietnamese dong. The project quickly gained attention when Shark Nguyễn Hòa Bình announced an investment of 2.5 million USD through the Next100 Blockchain investment fund, and was introduced as a "strategic advisor" on the project's website. Based on blockchain wallets, this project raised up to 4.5 million USD, equivalent to 125 billion VND at that time, excluding the amount the Shark committed.

When launching the project, Shark Bình wrote a post on Facebook criticizing "ugly Vietnamese crypto people" who are always jealous and have dark schemes against "decent" crypto projects like AntEx.

However, only after being listed on the exchange, the ANTEX token plummeted sharply, losing up to 99.99% of its value. By March 2023, the development team announced a rebranding of the project to Rabbit (RAB), allowing investors to exchange at a rate of 1,000 ANTEX = 1 RAB. Nevertheless, the RAB token also quickly lost value, becoming almost worthless in trading.

( Controversy between Shark Bình and the project team

Recently, a group of engineers who participated in the AntEx project accused Shark Bình of orchestrating the liquidity withdrawal, causing the project to collapse and investors to suffer significant losses. The Chief Technology Officer )CTO### of the project also accused Shark Bình of being involved in 2 other projects, Teky and Verime, where he raised up to 11 million USD, and Shark pocketed 3 million USD since 2017, while he received 300,000 USD.

On the contrary, in public statements on social media, Shark Bình asserted that he is the "victim," as he not only lost 2.5 million USD in investments but also has been associated with embezzlement.

The Hanoi police stated that they are continuing to investigate, gather additional evidence, and will soon announce the verification results to the public in the near future.

Thạch Sanh