Ledger Block and Fruugo Oline in Sri Lanka: Crypto Payments, Recruitment and the Missing Recovery Record

Evidence cut-off: 28 August 2026

Method and status. This documentary case study distinguishes promotional representation, participant account, regulatory determination, reported investigator fact-reporting, criminal process and final judicial finding. It does not determine civil or criminal liability. No original interviews were conducted for this edition. It is independent academic and investigative analysis, not legal, financial, investment or recovery advice, and has not been reviewed or endorsed by Cardiff Metropolitan University. Documentary corrections may be submitted through the corrections channel; material corrections, clarifications and later developments will be identified in the article’s update record.

Ledger Block and Fruugo Oline reached Sri Lanka through different stories. Ledger Block used the language of blockchain, staking, USDT and ranks. Fruugo Oline presented an app-based earning opportunity through packages carrying e-commerce and product labels. The two published participant accounts describe benefits linked to money contributed by people entering below them.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) placed both names in the same 22 April 2024 notice after investigations under section 83C of the Banking Act. That common regulatory date does not establish a common owner, platform, wallet or compensation plan. The two cases are combined here because their procedural records are similarly incomplete and because comparing their different presentation layers exposes a practical point: crypto terminology and e-commerce tasks can perform the same legitimising function around a recruitment-dependent arrangement.

The most important gap comes after the regulatory determination. CBSL asked the Attorney-General to consider criminal proceedings. A later news report said the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) informed a magistrate about four of the determinations, including Fruugo Oline. The accessible record does not show what charging decision followed, whether identifiable assets were preserved, or whether any participant received money through an enforcement process.

The answer in brief

Seven findings are supported at the evidence cut-off.

1. CBSL made a regulatory determination covering both schemes. Its notice published on 22 April 2024 said that, following complaints and investigations, Ledger Block and “Fruugo Oline App/ Fruugo Oline (Pvt) Ltd” conducted or had conducted prohibited schemes under section 83C (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024a).

2. The Attorney-General step was a request to consider proceedings. The notice did not announce a prosecution, identify a defendant, supply a case number or record a conviction (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024a).

3. Ledger Block has an official virtual-asset connection. The Financial Intelligence Unit’s Annual Report 2024 listed Ledger Block among prohibited schemes associated with virtual-asset-related activities. Participant and promotional material described USDT, Binance and TRC20 wallet instructions (Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka, 2025; LedgerBlock-promoting public blog, n.d.; Thilakarathna and De Peiris, 2025).

4. Fruugo Oline used an e-commerce and package presentation. One participant in a peer-reviewed study described rupee-priced beverage, clothing and beauty packages, tiered referral commissions and higher represented earnings for higher packages. The researchers separately stated that Fruugo Online often required cryptocurrency deposits but did not publish a Fruugo wallet, transaction record or participant quotation substantiating that route. The package and commission evidence remains participant-level material, not audited terms or proof that goods were delivered (Thilakarathna and De Peiris, 2025).

5. Recruitment was economically material in both published accounts. The Ledger Block participant described a 0.5 per cent benefit connected to new joiners’ investment and rank advancement linked to recruiting. The Fruugo participant described three levels of commission connected to new joiners (Thilakarathna and De Peiris, 2025).

6. The only located scheme-specific court reporting is narrow. Sri Lanka Mirror reported on 3 May 2024 that CID had informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate on 2 May about CBSL’s determinations concerning four entities, including Fruugo Oline. The report does not mention Ledger Block or identify an arrest, charge, application, signed order or judicial ruling (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2024).

7. No public recovery route is established. No scheme-specific public record reviewed identifies restrained property, forfeited proceeds, realised funds or a claimant distribution for either scheme.

Evidence labels used in this case study

The sources are strong on the regulatory conclusion but uneven on mechanics and later procedure. Four labels control the wording:

• Regulatory determination means CBSL’s conclusion following its section 83C investigation. It is legally significant but is not a conviction.
• Participant account means an experience recorded by researchers from a pseudonymous interviewee. It cannot establish universal terms or scheme-wide scale.
• Promotional representation records what a scheme-facing page or promoter said users should do. It does not prove performance, asset ownership, trading or regulatory authorisation.
• Reported investigator fact-reporting records what reputable reporting says CID told a court. Without the filing or signed order, it remains attributed reporting and is not a judicial finding.

These distinctions prevent an app balance from becoming a verified asset, an Attorney-General referral from becoming a charge and a reported court appearance from becoming a prosecution.

What CBSL determined on 22 April 2024

CBSL’s one-page notice said that it had received complaints and investigated eight named entities or applications under section 83C. It then stated that the listed names “conduct or have conducted prohibited schemes” and requested the Attorney-General to consider instituting criminal proceedings. Ledger Block appeared as item six. The exact official spelling for the other scheme was “Fruugo Oline App/ Fruugo Oline (Pvt) Ltd” (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024a).

The publication date is known: 22 April 2024. The notice does not separately date the complaints, completion of either investigation, internal determination or Attorney-General request. Those events should not be backdated to the publication date.

The notice establishes the regulatory status of each listed scheme. It does not:

• identify an individual operator or beneficial owner;
• establish that Ledger Block and Fruugo Oline were connected;
• say that a criminal charge had been filed;
• prove that any particular payment came from criminal conduct;
• identify a bank account, wallet or other asset; or
• create a restitution order.

Section 83C focuses on structure rather than branding. It reaches a scheme in which a participant contributes money or monetary value and the promised benefit depends largely on increasing participant numbers or their contributions. Its definition of monetary value is broad enough to include media of exchange and stored value whether or not redeemable in money. Cryptocurrency therefore need not be legal tender for the contribution-and-dependency question to arise. That is an interpretation of the statutory text, not a located Ledger Block or Fruugo Oline judgment (Sri Lanka, 1988, s.83C).

Ledger Block: crypto as payment rail and credibility layer

Ledger Block has the firmer official crypto classification. In a box article on virtual-asset-related prohibited schemes, the FIU’s Annual Report 2024 named five CBSL-determined schemes, including Ledger Block. The article described a general pattern in which schemes claimed profits from virtual-asset trading, displayed purported wallet balances through web systems and encouraged recruitment. It warned that displayed balances in such systems might not be recorded on a real blockchain (Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka, 2025, pp.30–33).

That general FIU description should not be converted into a Ledger Block-specific forensic finding. The report identifies Ledger Block as associated with virtual-asset-related activity; it does not publish a Ledger Block wallet, transaction trace or audited balance.

The peer-reviewed evidence supplies a participant-level account. Thilakarathna and De Peiris interviewed ten people through snowball sampling. One pseudonymous participant was associated with Ledger Block. The study’s table recorded a benefit described as 0.5 per cent of new joiners’ investment. Elsewhere, it reported that the same participant used USDT obtained through Binance and described a ranking system that linked higher tiers and passive-income promises to bringing in more people (Thilakarathna and De Peiris, 2025).

A public Sinhala-language registration guide promoted Ledger Block through referral links and instructed a prospective user to enter a TRC20 address obtained from a Binance spot-wallet deposit screen. The guide also directed users to install an authenticator application (LedgerBlock-promoting public blog, n.d.). It is useful evidence of the presented onboarding route. It does not prove that a particular user transferred USDT, that Ledger Block controlled the receiving address or that deposited funds entered a staking or trading strategy.

BehindMLM’s March 2023 review provides a more detailed but lower-weight reconstruction. It reported USDT-denominated entry levels, daily represented returns, ranks from V1 to V12 and rewards linked to downline investment. Its May update reported that withdrawals for Sri Lankan users had been disabled in mid-April. Those reports and their reader comments are leads, not an authenticated contract, platform export or regulator’s findings. Precise plan figures should not be treated as established universal terms without preserved first-party material (BehindMLM, 2023a, 2023b).

The reliable conclusion is narrower. Ledger Block was presented through real cryptocurrency vocabulary and a reported USDT funding route, while its recruitment and rank mechanisms were economically prominent. The public record does not show whether the advertised staking occurred, whether displayed balances matched on-chain property or who controlled the relevant wallets.

Fruugo Oline: e-commerce labels around packages and tasks

Fruugo Oline’s public evidence is thinner and comes mainly from one participant in the same peer-reviewed study. The study used the spelling “Fruugo Online”, while CBSL’s controlling regulatory notice uses “Fruugo Oline”. These labels are retained according to their source rather than silently normalised.

The participant described three packages:

Package label in the study	Reported price	Evidence control
Beverage items	Rs2,500	One participant’s published account; no product invoice or delivery audit.
Clothing	Rs9,000	A package label and price do not establish external retail demand.
Beauty	Rs25,000	Not proof that goods generated the represented benefit.

The same participant separately described three referral levels carrying commissions of 10, 6 and 4 per cent. The publication does not establish that a particular commission percentage was paired with a particular named package. The participant also said that higher-level packages offered higher income, that communication took place through WhatsApp groups and that a purported government “tax” was demanded when withdrawals became unavailable, but the money was not returned. The researchers separately stated in their narrative that Fruugo Online often required cryptocurrency deposits; they did not publish a Fruugo wallet, transaction record or participant quotation substantiating that route (Thilakarathna and De Peiris, 2025).

Each part requires qualification. The interview does not establish that every participant received the same offer, that package items existed or were delivered, that any government tax was legally payable, or that every payment followed one crypto route. No authenticated scheme wallet or transaction hash was published with the study.

The e-commerce labels matter because they can make a contribution look like a purchase or task-based job. A genuine retail transaction has independently observable economic activity: a product, a seller, an end customer, delivery, a price and settlement. The located Fruugo Oline record does not provide enough evidence to measure external retail sales against participant contributions. It therefore cannot establish that the labelled items generated the represented earnings.

The name also requires care. Fruugo.com Ltd publicly describes itself as a UK-based cross-border marketplace operating through its own country domains. No public record reviewed establishes that the Sri Lankan name “Fruugo Oline App/ Fruugo Oline (Pvt) Ltd” was owned, authorised or operated by Fruugo.com Ltd. The similarity should not be used either to attribute the Sri Lankan scheme to the marketplace or to imply that CBSL’s determination concerned the marketplace (Fruugo.com Ltd, n.d.; Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024a).

The same discipline applies to Ledger Block. Ledger SAS publicly describes its business as products and services for managing digital assets, including Ledger-branded hardware wallets. No reviewed record connects Ledger SAS, its devices or its official wallet application to Ledger Block. The shared word “Ledger” is not evidence of ownership, endorsement, technical integration or liability (Ledger SAS, n.d.; Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024a).

Crypto transfer, app balance and investment performance are different facts

The Ledger Block and Fruugo Oline records illustrate four separate layers:

1. A participant can exchange rupees for USDT through an exchange or another person.
2. USDT can be sent to a supplied address on a public blockchain.
3. A website or app can display an internal balance, rank, task completion or represented earnings.
4. A promoter can claim that funds support staking, trading, e-commerce or another revenue source.

Proof at one layer does not prove the next. A real USDT transfer establishes movement to an address, not beneficial ownership of that address or use of the funds. An app display establishes what the user saw, not that an equivalent asset existed. A product or staking label establishes a representation, not the economic activity said to fund returns.

No publicly attributed Ledger Block or Fruugo Oline wallet, complete transaction set, exchange disclosure, customer-asset reconciliation or trading or staking audit was located. The amounts shown in promotional packages and participant dashboards therefore cannot be described as traced assets, realised profit or recoverable balances.

What happened in court reporting on 2 May 2024

Sri Lanka Mirror reported on 3 May that CID had informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate the previous day that CBSL had identified four entities as prohibited schemes. The report named Beecoin App/Sunbird Foundation, Fast Win (Pvt) Ltd, Fruugo Online App/Fruugo Online (Pvt) Ltd and Genesis Business School/Era Miracle (Pvt) Ltd (Sri Lanka Mirror, 2024).

This report supports a limited procedural statement: CID reportedly placed facts concerning the CBSL determination before the Colombo Chief Magistrate on 2 May 2024, and Fruugo Oline was among four names identified.

It does not report:

• that Fruugo Oline or any person had been charged;
• that a suspect was arrested, remanded or granted bail;
• that the court made an order;
• that property was frozen; or
• that Ledger Block was part of that fact-reporting.

The report used the word “banned”, but the primary CBSL document records a section 83C determination and an Attorney-General request. The primary wording controls the legal status.

The later collective update cannot be assigned scheme by scheme

On 19 December 2024, CBSL listed 20 institutions, including Fruugo Oline and Ledger Block, in an enforcement-progress statement. It said CBSL had provided information and records from its investigations to law-enforcement authorities and collaborated with them. It then stated collectively that some matters were before courts while others remained under investigation with a view to filing actions (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2024b).

CBSL did not map those two procedural categories to individual schemes. The update therefore does not establish that Ledger Block was before a court, that Fruugo Oline remained only under investigation, or the reverse. It also does not announce charges, judgments or recovery in either case.

CBSL continued to include both names in its cumulative prohibited-scheme list on 5 August 2026. The new determination announced that day concerned TM App. Continued inclusion shows the persistence of the published regulatory classification; it does not show that either scheme was operating in August 2026 or that a new case-specific order had been made (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2026).

Arrests, assets and participant recovery

The accessible case record stops before the stages that matter most to participants. No public Ledger Block- or Fruugo Oline-specific source reviewed identifies:

• an arrest or named suspect;
• a section 83C charge sheet or High Court indictment;
• a reliable magistrate’s or High Court case number;
• a signed restraint or freezing order;
• a scheme-owned bank account, wallet or property schedule;
• final forfeiture or realisation; or
• an enforcement-related distribution to verified claimants.

This is a bounded public-record finding. Sri Lankan lower-court files and prosecutorial decisions are not comprehensively available online, and an unlocated document is not proof that it does not exist.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act has treated a section 83C offence as “unlawful activity” since 2006. Sri Lanka’s later Proceeds of Crime Act supplies broader preservation, management and forfeiture routes, including for virtual assets. Neither statute turns CBSL’s regulatory notice into proof that particular property is criminal proceeds, and no case-specific application of those mechanisms was located here (Sri Lanka, 2006, s.35; Sri Lanka, 2025).

The gap between determination and restitution is therefore concrete. A participant-level report of a blocked withdrawal or extra payment demand identifies potential harm. It does not identify property available for distribution. Recovery requires a defensible chain from payment evidence to attributed property, lawful preservation, adjudication or another recognised basis, realisation and claimant verification.

What remains unknown

A meaningful update would answer at least one of these questions:

• When did CBSL complete each determination and transmit the files?
• What decision did the Attorney-General make on each referral?
• Is there a Fruugo Oline case corresponding to the 2 May 2024 CID fact-reporting, and what is its reliable number?
• Was a separate Ledger Block investigation or case opened?
• Who owned or controlled the applications, domains and receiving wallets?
• Which deposits can be matched to bank or public-chain transactions?
• Were any accounts, wallets, vehicles or real property preserved?
• Did a court determine proceeds status or order forfeiture?
• Has any verified claimant received money through a public enforcement process?

Answers must remain scheme-specific. A court event or asset figure from Beecoin, OnmaxDT or another CBSL-listed matter cannot fill the Ledger Block or Fruugo Oline record.

Implication for the wider crypto-case series

These two cases strengthen the series’ central finding. Crypto’s legal-tender status is not the decisive question when a scheme requires monetary value and links benefits to participant growth. Ledger Block shows cryptocurrency operating as a payment and credibility layer around ranks and recruitment. Fruugo Oline shows an e-commerce and task veneer combined with participant-reported recruitment-linked packages; the study’s authors separately associated it with frequent cryptocurrency deposits without publishing transaction-level substantiation.

The comparison also limits that conclusion. The public evidence does not establish that the schemes were identical, shared operators or used the same wallet infrastructure. Nor does it show that every crypto-funded or app-based opportunity falls within section 83C. The regulatory determination is scheme-specific; criminal liability remains for a court on admissible evidence.

For the public-safety work that follows this series, the practical warnings are clear: product labels do not prove external retail demand; a blockchain transfer does not prove investment activity; an app balance is not an asset statement; rank advancement tied to new deposits is a material warning sign; and an additional “tax” or activation payment demanded to release a withdrawal should be treated as a high-risk escalation, not evidence that funds are about to be returned.

At the evidence cut-off, the defensible procedural conclusion is narrow: CBSL determined that Ledger Block and Fruugo Oline conducted or had conducted prohibited schemes and asked the Attorney-General to consider criminal proceedings. CID was later reported to have placed the Fruugo Oline determination before a magistrate. The reviewed public record establishes no charge, judgment, identified restraint, forfeiture or claimant distribution for either scheme.

References

BehindMLM (2023a) ‘LedgerBlock Review: Metaverse “staking” MLM crypto Ponzi’, 24 March. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

BehindMLM (2023b) ‘LedgerBlock Ponzi collapses, withdrawals disabled’, 4 May. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2024a) ‘Participating in pyramid schemes is a punishable offence’, 22 April. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2024b) ‘Progress on combating prohibited schemes under section 83(C) of the Banking Act No. 30 of 1988, as amended’, 19 December. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2026) ‘Notice to general public on prohibited pyramid schemes’, 5 August. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Financial Intelligence Unit of Sri Lanka (2025) Annual Report 2024. Colombo: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, pp. 30–33. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Fruugo.com Ltd (n.d.) ‘About us’. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Ledger SAS (n.d.) ‘The Ledger Company’. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

LedgerBlock-promoting public blog (n.d.) ‘Ledgerblock account-registration guide’. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (1988) Banking Act No. 30 of 1988, as amended. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2006) Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka (2025) Proceeds of Crime Act No. 5 of 2025. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Sri Lanka Mirror (2024) ‘CBSL updates pyramid scheme entity list’, 3 May. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).

Thilakarathna, A.S. and De Peiris, N. (2025) ‘Financial deception in the digital age: investigating online pyramid schemes and their socioeconomic impacts in Sri Lanka’, Journal of Financial Crime, 32(6), pp. 1191–1210. Available at: Original (Accessed: 28 August 2026).