Tweet FinCEN has released an advisory for banks to become aware of, and assess the purchase and trafficking of fentanyl online for financial crime compliance. Fentanyl is imported in bulk from Mexican cartels and follows the same typology as typical TCOs and money laundering activities. It is also imported from China via online sales on […]
Tweet While an inordinate number of Bitcoin exchange executives are facing increased violence, and even death (see here and here), one exchange CEO is on trial in the Philippines for the opposite – namely, allegedly killing his girlfriend. Troy Woody Jr., apparently the CEO of an exchange in the US called Luxr LLC, was arrested […]
Tweet Exchange owner killed The co-founder of a Bitcoin exchange called BitMarket, was found murdered in Poland, after the exchange closed, citing a lack of liquidity. Allegedly, over $23 million in customer funds is unaccounted for. Tobiasz Niemiro was found with a bullet in his head in the woods a few hours from Warsaw. Although […]
Tweet The Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC“) has entered into a settlement agreement with a Canadian company called CoinLaunch to settle claims that it engaged in the business of trading securities contrary to the Securities Act (Ontario) in respect of two ICOs. Articles about CoinLaunch stated that over $1,050,000,000 was generated on its ICO platforms (see […]
Tweet The US Attorney for the Northern District of California, on behalf of the US Treasury, has filed a civil complaint against the Bitcoin exchange known as BTC-e and one of its alleged owners / officers, Alexander Vinnik, to enforce over $100 million in monetary penalties for a series of anti-money laundering law violations. BTC-e […]
Tweet Working with Europol, several law enforcement agencies shut down a Bitcoin mixing and anonymizing service called Bestmixer, which was one of the largest mixing services for digital currencies. Mixing and anonymizing services or anonymizing exchanges process digital currencies on behalf of customers in order to make it difficult to trace the digital currencies. The […]
Tweet In furtherance of the US approach to responsible innovation, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF“)’s private sector consultation in Vienna two weeks ago, will help drive changes to FATF Recommendation 15 to bring digital currencies, ICOs, and digital currency exchanges more fully into the AML requirements in June 2019. The Vienna change will take […]
Tweet Canadian Parliamentarian Dan Albas, has introduced Bill C-452 in Parliament today which would allow holders of cryptocurrency to make charitable donations in crypto to Canadian charities and get a tax credit for their donations. The short but powerful amendment to the Income Tax Act, amends §38(a.1) to include crypto as an approved category for the […]
Tweet Bitcoin investor, Michael Terpin, won a US$75.8 million civil judgment on Friday in California against 21-year-old Nicholas Truglia who SIM-swapped Terpin’s cellular phone and stole over US$23 million from Terpin’s digital currency wallets that held coins from three ICOs. In all, Truglia is alleged to have stolen over US$81 million in crypto currencies via […]
Tweet The Spanish Guardia Civil has arrested eight people and seized over €9 million, luxury cars, cannabis plants and jewellery in connection with an alleged money laundering operation in Spain that involved the use of Bitcoin ATMs and digital currency exchanges to launder proceeds of crime and avoid the filing of suspicious transaction reports. According […]