Two Chinese citizens living in mainland China are the target of lawsuits brought by Alphabet's Google subsidiary in federal court in New York for allegedly using Google Play to promote and disseminate fake cryptocurrency apps.

Over 100,000 people downloaded the fake applications from Google Play, including TionRT exchange, after depositing money into them, seeing returns, and initially being able to withdraw small amounts before losing access to their balances.

As the first internet corporation to take legal action against scammers, Google claims to be trying to establish a precedent. In order to submit their fake apps to Google Play, the defendants reportedly made "several misrepresentations to Google, including but not limited to misrepresentations about their name, location, and the type and nature of the application being uploaded.”

It is filing lawsuits against the group that Google claims released at least 87 cryptocurrency hoax apps on Google Play, alleging breach of contract and filing accusations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute.

It identified the accused offenders as Yunfeng Sun, also known as Alphonse Sun, and Hongnam Cheung, also known as Zhang Hongnim or Stanford Fischer. They claimed to have tricked victims into downloading the apps through Google Voice text messaging campaigns, YouTube videos, and affiliate marketing schemes.

But it's still unclear if Google will be able to get sanctions against the parties. Since the United States and China do not currently have a reciprocal legal enforcement agreement, even in the event that the lawsuit is successful, Chinese authorities will not be required to implement it within its territory.