Vancouver capital markets: amended SEC complaint reveals shady underground capital markets money laundering ecosystem

Tweet The biggest money laundering case in Canadian history, only it isn’t taking place in Canada The US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a proposed amended complaint on February 3, 2022, in the US District Court of Massachusetts in case of SEC v. Frederick Sharp, Avtar Dhillon, Zhiying Chen, Courtney Kelln, Michael Veldhuis, Paul Sexton, Jackson […]

American ICO lawyer and director of Vancouver Blockchain company, hit with more extortion charges

Tweet Grand jury indictment for Canadian director Steven Nerayoff, a US lawyer who advised a number of digital currency companies and initial coin offerings (“ICOs“) was indicted by a Grand Jury on January 10, 2020, in New York. Nerayoff is, or was, the Chairman of a British Columbia public company called Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. […]

US releases national strategy for anti-money laundering threats to US financial system

Tweet The US Department of the Treasury has released a “2020 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing“, which provides a roadmap to identify current money laundering and terrorist financing threats and provides strategies to mitigate the identified threats and risks. In the Strategy, some of the key money laundering risks are identified […]

SEC locates pump & dump alleged mastermind in Ibiza who used a Vancouver lawyer for the alleged scheme

Tweet Biozoom boy found in Ibiza The alleged mastermind behind the alleged pump and dump securities fraud case involving Biozoom, Francisco Abellan Villena, has been located in Ibiza, the playground for billionaires. Villena is currently incarcerated in Ibiza, perhaps on an extradition warrant from the US. He was located by an investigator in Spain hired […]

US considering two anti-money laundering bills to force disclosure of shareholders of private companies

Tweet In what will be the most significant change to anti-money laundering law in the US since the Bank Secrecy Act, the US is considering two separate bills that, if passed, would require disclosure of the shareholders of private companies – the ILLICIT CASH Act and the Corporate Transparency Act, H.R. 2513. ILLICIT Cash Act […]

8 questions you may have had about the movie “The Laundromat” and yes, there are British Columbia connections

Tweet Part 1 – Background Skip this Part 1 if you know about Mossack Fonseca and shell and shelf companies. The movie The Laundromat is about lawyers and big law firms and the system that fuels offshore money movements, often involving the proceeds of crime. The movie is about a big law firm called Mossack Fonseca that […]

Law firms flipping shelf and shell companies

Tweet Shell games US law enforcement agencies recently signalled that they were stepping up enforcement, inter alia, in two ways: (a) as against professional money launderers; and (b) as against shell and shelf companies that law firms flip to clients. Professional money launderers under scrutiny, the FBI explained recently, are accountants, hawalas, lawyers and individuals, […]

US lawyer who resold shell companies for an issuer, settles with SEC

Tweet SEC Settlement A New Jersey lawyer, Gregg Jaclin, entered into a settlement agreement (available from the SEC online here) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC“) earlier this fall in respect of several allegations, including over the practice of the creation and resale of shell companies. The settlement states that two defendants ran […]