Police launches investigation into Envestio

This week Estonian police started a criminal investigation regarding the crowdfunding platform Envestio. The case is being investigated as investment fraud.

Head of Economic Crime Bureau of Central Criminal Police Leho Laur explained that the Estonian police and other investigative authorities have received a large number of appeals from people who have invested their money on the crowdfunding platform Envestio. „Majority of the appeals are from people outside of Estonia. We are currently working through the statements received and communicating with our partners to gather all information. We know that the number of people who have put their money into Envestio is even larger, thus, we are likely to receive more complaints,“ said Laur.

„Our first objective in the investigation is to find out wheter it was fraud and the platform was created with the purpose of deceiving people or the website was closed due to a bad investment. It is also important to identify the people connected to this company and determine, wheter the crime was committed in Estonia or elsewhere. This is an investigation that has many parties and we will be cooperating internationally as well,“ Leho Laur added.

Understandably, the people who placed their money with Envestio are most of all interested in recovering their funds. The Economic Crime Bureau of Central Criminal Police is working to establish how money was moved. „Usually, in international fraud, the money is quickly shifted between accounts in different countries until it is withdrawn through an ATM. Due to this, the chance to recover the money is small,“ said head of Economic Crime Bureau.

Most active crowdfunding platforms are trustworthy, but we recommed to always check where you are placing your money.

State prosecutor Sigrid Nurm said that before investing into a company, it is necessary to do background work and check where exactly the money will be placed. „A promise of a high return and claimed amount of people involved or money invested, should not be viewed as guarantees. We recommend to look past advertisements, social media posts and websites, and to look into the background of the company in more depth. Look into open source registries, consult with your home bank or a local Financial Market Supervision Authority. It is also important to remember that every investment carries a risk and losing money does not necessarily mean that it was fraud,“ Nurm suggested.

A statement can be submitted by e-mailing ... and describing the case in as much detail as possible. We ask to provide contact details, amount of money lost, dates for transacations, description of what happened etc.

Currently we have no reason to believe that the two platforms, Kuetzal and Envestio are connected.

Leana Loide
Press Officer
Estonian Police and Border Guard Board
+372 525 4219
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