What You Need to Know
- A Florida woman sued Google in a California state court.
- The woman alleged that a cryptocurrency wallet app she downloaded on the Google Play Store was malicious and led to the theft of $5 million in cryptocurrency.
- Her attorney said the case is part of a larger trend in which crypto is one of the key tools to con people out of their wealth or outright steal from them.
A Florida woman who downloaded an app from the Google Play Store that she believed was a cryptocurrency wallet has sued Google in a California state court after the app allegedly turned malicious and her crypto, valued in the millions, was stolen.
Chris Vernon, a partner at the Vernon Litigation Group in Naples, Florida, and Frederick A. Rispoli, a partner at Hodl Law in Ladera Ranch, California, represent the plaintiff, Maria Vaca, in the lawsuit against Google. Vernon said the case is part of a larger trend in which crypto is one of the key tools to con people out of their wealth or outright steal from them.
“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 U.S.,” Vernon said in an email. “In the interim, lawsuits such as the one we filed this week help drive that process.”
Google did not respond to a request for comment.
Andrew Dressel, a solo practitioner based in New York and New Jersey who specializes in crypto litigation and is not involved in the matter, said he had not encountered a fact pattern in which an app purchased on an app store was used to obtain confidential wallet information. Normally, bad actors use social media to contact users and convince them to move crypto to a fake website.
“The key piece of information is going to be whether Google was aware that it had a scam app operating on its app store and how long it allowed that to persist,” Dressel said. “That strikes me as the best pathway to a recovery.”
Now, the case is pending before the Superior Court of Santa Clara County.
Google Play was initially launched in October 2008 and later relaunched in March 2012 after Google acquired the Android mobile operating system. It hosts Google-approved apps and other digital products and is the dominant distribution channel for apps to Android users. Google Play generates billions in revenue each year for Google.
While Google aggressively markets and advertises the store as the most trusted and secure platform for Android device users to safely download and interact with apps that the company makes available on the store, Vaca alleged in the lawsuit that the store “is actually one of the more prolific stores of malicious apps in the Android app distribution marketplace.”
And as a result of Google’s aggressive marketing practices designed to lure Android device users into a false sense of security, scammers and cybercriminals have shifted their tactics to exploit it, according to the complaint. Here, Vaca said she downloaded Yobit Pro from the store based on Google’s representation that it was safe and secure.
However, cybercriminals stole Vaca’s mnemonic phrases, accessed her cryptocurrency wallets, and stole more than $5 million of Vaca’s cryptocurrency without her knowledge or consent, according to the lawsuit. In turn, Vaca alleged eight claims against Google, including negligence, promissory estoppel, and violations of California’s false advertising law and consumer legal remedies act.
Vernon said that, while there have been other complaints about the app, he is not aware of any lawsuits against the company that developed it.
“From our perspective,” Vernon said, “the cases should be, and likely will be, against the companies that allow the app onto their platforms without adequate vetting, as well as allowing these types of apps to remain on the platform after problems develop.”
Read the Lawsuit:
- https://www.law.com/topics/cryptocurrency/