On March 15, TurtleDEX raised 9000 BNB tokens worth $2.5 million in a pre-sale round in just two hours.
Based on TurtleDEX team wallet transactions, the DeFi project drained the raised amount from trading pools on Pancake Swap and Ape Swap and converted the liquidity to ETH. They then sent the funds to Binance exchange wallets to be sold.
Jet Fuel Finance, a yield farming protocol that partnered with TurtleDex has confirmed the exit scam on Twitter and Medium, expressing their shock.
The yield farming protocol also took the initiative to start two Telegram groups in the hopes of recovering lost funds called Turtledex RUG and Turtledex RUG.
Following the exit scam, the Defi project immediately deleted its TurtleDEX’s official website, Twitter account, and Telegram's group admin account.
TurtleDEX proclaimed itself as a DeFi storage platform that helps users store data and files securely online.
Users were shocked as TechRate, an analytical and engineering agency that audited the project did not find security issues. With the recent scam, users are now raising concerns about the usefulness of contract audits.
TurtleDex is not the first project on Binance Smart Chain to get exit scammed. Earlier this month, DeFi project Meerkat Finance stole over $30 million of digital assets with 13.96 million in BUSD and over 73,000 in BNB.