Alleged former Worldcoin employee says they’re in contact with authorities

An individual calling themselves Nadir Hajarabi, who claimed to have previously worked for Worldcoin, has alleged the human identity verification project may have committed illegal acts during their employment.

In an Aug. 23 YouTube video, Hajarabi said they witnessed “very questionable” activities at Worldcoin including “sloppy and/or illegal things” prior to quitting the project before its token launch on July 24. They claimed the organization was holding some of their pay, and were speaking with authorities in different jurisdictions as part of probes into Worldcoin.

According to Hajarabi, the Worldcoin project had a “horrendous execution” which involved cutting corners ahead of the release of its white paper, and they had seen red flags “from day one”. They said they contacted the Worldcoin CEO and the organization’s legal team but did not receive satisfactory answers for the alleged discrepancies in its mission versus execution.

Cointelegraph was unable to independently verify Hajarabi’s claims, though a photo posted to X appeared to show them with one of the project’s iris-scanning orbs. Their YouTube channel, created in September 2013, featured only one video with the allegations against Worldcoin. An X account which appeared to be controlled by the same individual posted a photo of an ETHGlobal Paris badge with Hajarabi’s name and affiliation with Worldcoin.

A LinkedIn page of Hajarabi appeared to be connected to the same individual in the YouTube video — a Paris resident with experience in nonfungible tokens, web3 projects, and smart contracts. Cointelegraph reached out to Worldcoin for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

The Worldcoin project started with the intention of distinguishing real people from bots by providing retinal scans for identity verification through the orbs. There were more than 2 million sign-ups prior to the launch of the Worldcoin token in July.

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