A a new lawsuit was filed by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is a showcase of how difficult it has become to police app stores for fraudulent apps. The lawsuit alleges that a company known as Genesis Tech defrauded consumers and funneled revenue overseas through the use of shell companies designed to disguise its identity and hide its assets.
Genesis Tech’s network allegedly included a number of subsidiaries incorporated in Cyprus and operating in Ukraine, which made its applications available to US consumers. Among its brands were fitness and nutrition apps MadMuscles, Harna and Unimeal by Amo Apps Limited; PDF Guru and PDF Master by GuruDocs Limited; Lumi fashion app by Bramol Limited; Horoscope app Nebula from Obrio Limited; habit and personal productivity apps under the Wisey brand by Koflimin Limited; and others.
From early 2023 to mid-2025, these five companies’ product offerings accounted for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in global revenue.
The suit also notes that, in the 12 months ending in September 2025, transactions through all of the company’s linked PayPal accounts totaled nearly $700 million.
The case highlights a growing challenge for Apple and Google as subscription fraud evolves beyond individual apps to complex networks of shell companies. Genesis Tech, for example, registered new corporate entities and created multiple merchant accounts to hide its identity, the lawsuit alleges, and then moved the money it made across borders between its various corporate subsidiaries.
By constantly creating new accounts, the app’s publisher was able to evade fraud trackers for years, the FTC explains.
Like other fraudulent subscription apps plaguing today’s app stores that have drawn scrutiny from regulators and consumer advocates, Genesis Tech’s products made it easy to sign up but difficult to cancel.
While the company promoted its products as free or low-cost, consumers who signed up would be treated to auto-renewing subscriptions. From time to time, the company also charges customers for additional products without their knowledge or consent or even double charging their.
The company also made it difficult to cancel by omitting cancellation options from its websites and apps, and often continued to charge customers without authorization, the FTC’s lawsuit says.
Genesis Tech’s practices violate the FTC Act and the Restoring Internet Consumer Confidence Act (ROSCA), the complaint states. It also names Stamatis Skianis, Oksana Kucher, Iryna Oleksyn, Olga Garbuzenko, Rostyslav Ivanitsa and Viktoriia Savchuk as co-defendants in the case, which will be tried in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
TechCrunch reached out to Genesis Tech for comment through publicly available email addresses for the affiliates listed in the case. No comment was immediately provided.
The FTC has taken mobile app makers to court in the past, having investigated and settled cases with anonymous teen Q&A app NGL, dating app giant Match, gig app Handy, kids app maker HyperBeard and adjacent players such as mobile ad company Tapjoy or data broker X-Mode, among others.
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