CrofAI, self-claimed cheapest inference provider, exposed as an OpenRouter wrapper swapping in cheaper models at up to 20x markup

CrofAI "cheapest inference provider in the world" gets exposed as an OpenRouter wrapper, routing requests to smaller, cheaper models at up to 20x markup. CrofAI responds to Wire Fraud allegations by denying everything, then backtracking, then 3 hours later wiping their entire online presence

CrofAI marketed itself as the world's cheapest inference provider but was caught by developer Kendell silently routing API calls to smaller, cheaper models on OpenRouter. For example, requests for Kimi K3 at $2/$10 in/out were actually served by GLM 5.3 Flash, a 13–20x markup. The founder also fabricated a 'greg' model family that simply pointed to existing open models like GLM 5.2 and Qwen 3.5 9B. After the exposé, he denied everything, then claimed a 'team' was taking over, and within hours deleted the website, Twitter account, and subreddit. The post also notes his hardware claims don't add up: Kimi K3 needs at least 802GiB of VRAM even at Q2_K quantization, but the largest RTX Pro 6000 machine on Vast only offers 765GiB.

Why it matters: A full fraud exposé with technical evidence and a dramatic company meltdown. Hits all three HKR axes. Score capped below 85 because the source is a Reddit post, not formal reporting, and the event is a single-provider scandal rather than a model or protocol shift.