The Prosecution stated that its social media monitoring unit detected several posts accusing the platform's founders of fraud and stealing money.

The Counter-Cyber Crime department at the Ministry of Interior also submitted a case containing multiple complaints from citizens accusing Hoggpool of scamming users through electronic payments with the promise of receiving daily returns from the app, the statement added.

Earlier on Saturday, the Egyptian authorities announced the arrest of the suspects behind the Ponzi scheme which made headlines after scamming thousands of Egyptians out of millions of pounds.

Police arrested 29 suspects including 13 foreign nationals, the interior ministry said, adding that the HoggPool platform was using two villas in Cairo for their operations.

HoggPool, which launched in August, claimed to offer cryptocurrency mining and trading services for a fee before shutting down the platform and halting payments to its customers in late February. 

It offered different plans for customers depending on their budget and goals by allegedly buying or renting cryptocurrency mining machines starting from $10 with a daily profit of 10 percent.

The suspects confessed to swindling funds and transferring them abroad, the ministry said, adding that the online platform managed to collect about EGP 19 million from its victims.

The suspects said in their confessions that after closing the HoggPool platform, they had intended to relaunch the same type of scam under the name RIOT, according to the Ministry of Interior.

The name RIOT was chosen to imply a connection to the US-based Riot company, which is one the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners in North America.

The Egyptian authorities found the suspects in the possession of 95 mobile phones, 3,367 mobile phone lines, nine multi-modems, seven computers, EGP 600,000 in foreign and local currencies, and 41 credit cards issued by foreign banks.

The Interior Ministry added that the necessary measures are being taken to track the stolen funds – which have been transferred abroad – with the assistance of Interpol.

The ministry urged citizens not to deal with anonymous applications that promise improbable returns on investment.

This is not the first large-scale online Ponzi scheme to take place in Egypt.

In recent years, many Egyptians have fallen victim to similar scams, losing large sums of money in the process.

Dealing in cryptocurrency is illegal in Egypt and is punishable by prison terms and a fine of up to EGP 10 million.