Florida Woman sues Google over $5M loss to Malicious Crypto App on Play Store

A $5 million lawsuit has been filed against Google for the alleged theft of significant digital assets through the use of a crypto wallet app that was downloaded from the Play Store and turned out to be malicious. Maria Vaca, the victim, says she has lost her cryptocurrency holdings because she trusted an application that seemed to be authentic.

Maria Vaca, a Florida resident, is alleged in a recent lawsuit to have invested roughly $4.6 million in cryptocurrency through the Yobit Pro app between February and July 2023, thinking she was beating the market.

Vaca tried to take out the money when the app showed she had about $7 million left, but she was informed she needed to deposit an extra $500,000 for "taxes." After making the deposit, Vaca noticed an irregularity when the app asked for an extra $2 million.

As per Vaca's lawsuit, she was threatened with death by unknown cybercriminals through WhatsApp messages if she didn't make a deposit. This was in response to her refusal to pay the additional ransom. After reaching out to law enforcement, Vaca also contacted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which sent Google the complaint the same day. Regarding the Play Store app, Vaca's lawsuit claims that Google took three months to take it down.

Vaca filed a lawsuit against Google in a state court in California, claiming that the tech giant was irresponsible in permitting the dangerous app to be downloaded from its store.

The lawsuit questions Google's obligation to safeguard its users against fraudulent applications, a developing problem that has resulted in multiple reports of incidents of this nature, the post added.

Vaca is presently suing Google for at least $5 million in damages for her monetary losses. Because the app was hosted on the Google Play Store, where users were led to believe that the platform was safe and devoid of fraudulent applications, her lawsuit highlights her confidence in the app. Vaca claims the fraud caused her to incur significant emotional, psychological, and monetary losses.

The post added that Vaca's lawsuit includes testimony from her and claims that at least five of the 12,759 other Android device owners who downloaded Yobit Pro via Google Play had similar experiences.

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