It were just warnings though. Sensible warnings but there was no real smoking gun for a very long time.
(3k btc ICO out of nowhere is a big smoking gun, sorry if you can't see it, because you will continue to lose money big time)and no, even if the project was legit, it would not need such large amount of cash so early in the process.
Gets things done then get investors not the other way around. (cant' understand why so called crypto investor fall for it every time)