FTX: Kids Round-tripping in Crypto-land

Tweet Another crypto company bit the dust early this week, and with it, up to US$10 billion in customer money evaporated. BlockFi was a digital currency exchange, deposit-taking institution, and lender. BlockFi also issued and sold securities. It was not government-registered to provide any of those financial services in Canada. In early 2022, it settled […]

Voyager Digital: Asking Questions about Canadian Capital Markets

Tweet Part 1 – Securities Fraud in Canada and l’affaire Uramin-Areva Voyager Digital “Asking Questions About Canadian Capital Markets” is a series of articles about the capital markets in which we explore some Canadian public companies and ask questions. These questions may shed light on the now-defunct Canadian digital currency exchange called Voyager Digital based […]

DeFi platform allegedly posts a note on its website confessing it scammed Bitcoin investors and there isn’t sh*t they can do about it

Tweet According to the Twitter account of a Bitcoin investor, the DeFi platform called DeFi100, that is listed on Binance, posted a notice on its website earlier today that it scammed its investors and that there was nothing the investors could do about it. “Ha ha. All you moon boys have been scammed. Fuck you […]

Russian national who provided money laundering as a service, pleads guilty in US

Tweet A Russian national, Maksim Boiko, who was accused of operating a money laundering as a service (“MLaaS“) business, pleaded guilty in Pittsburg today, to one count of conspiracy to launder money. In this case, the MLaaS involved opening personal and company bank accounts to receive and then move money for criminals and opening Bitcoin […]

FinCEN assesses US$60 million penalty against owner of Bitcoin mixer / tumbler service

Tweet US$60 million penalty On October 19, 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN“) assessed a US$60 million penalty (here) against Larry Dean Harmon, the owner of two Bitcoin mixing and anonymizing services called Helix and Coin Ninja LLC. FinCEN found that the two entities were operating as unregistered money services businesses (“MSB“) which exchanged […]

Bitcoin exchange owners charged by CFTC and US DoJ with various federal violations

Tweet CFTC civil enforcement action The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC“) today filed a civil enforcement action in the SDNY against the owners – operators of a digital currency exchange called BitMEX, for alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. BitMEX processed trillions of dollars in transactions, received over US$11 billion in Bitcoin and made […]

Money laundering and securities fraud indictment unsealed against key promoter of OneCoin

Tweet After two years, the Attorney General for the Southern District of New York has unsealed the indictment against Karl Sebastian Greenwood, a promoter of the Bulgarian initial coin offering, and supposed digital currency called OneCoin. Greenwood was allegedly extradited to the US from Thailand in 2018. Indictment unsealed In the indictment, Greenwood is charged, […]

Interpol issues warning that Bitcoin ransomware cyberattacks targeting hospitals could lead directly to deaths in covid-19

Tweet Interpol has released a warning that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, ransomware cybersecurity attacks against hospitals and other institutions and research departments, are expected to increase. The way ransomware attacks work is that hackers infiltrate and take exclusive control over computer systems, locking out the administrators, and promise to relinquish control of the computer systems […]