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 […]
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 […]
Tweet A mysterious man from Asia and the most famous round-tripping case In Part 1 of “Understanding round-tripping in the capital markets” (here), we discussed round-tripping and looked at a rare SEC enforcement action involving round-tripping by executives of a microcap public company. In this Part 2, we look at the most famous round-tripping case […]
Tweet The US federal government has filed an indictment against a foreign national, Kenneth Zong, who resided in the US for allegedly laundering over $1 billion from Iran through Canada, the US and a number of other countries in violation of international sanctions law that prohibit providing financial services to Iranian foreign nationals in Iran […]
Tweet The requested deportation of Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former Iranian foreign national, and a Canadian citizen living in Toronto, seems to be at the centre of the arrest of a Canadian professor from Montreal, Homa Hoodfar, also an Iranian foreign national and equally a Canadian citizen, who was visiting Iran. Professor Hoodfar was arrested […]
Tweet Diamond smuggling into Vancouver The Ming Pao Saturday Magazine has an interesting story on the arrest of two men from Hong Kong who attempted to smuggle $120 million worth of diamonds into Canada. The diamonds were strapped to their legs and are believed to be proceeds of crime. The story discusses the issue of […]
Tweet Sanctions likely to seriously impede Canadian-Russian financial transactions and therefore significant trade By Christine Duhaime, B.A., J.D., Financial Crime and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist Follow @cduhaime The Canadian government has announced the imposition of sanctions against the Bank of Moscow, the Russian National Commercial Bank and other Russian and Ukrainian-controlled businesses and financial institutions, as […]
Tweet Bloomberg News has a follow-up article here on last week’s story of how wealthy immigrants from China and Hong Kong use alleged money-laundering services offered by the Bank of China Ltd. to transfer funds to Canada and the US. Last week, China Central Television broadcast a story alleging that the Bank of China offered a money […]
Tweet New Bitcoin Law At the end of this week, the Parliament of Canada approved what is likely the world’s first national Bitcoin law, and certainly the world’s first treatment in law of Bitcoin under national anti-money laundering law. Late Thursday, Canada’s Governor General gave Royal Assent to Bill C-31, An Act to Implement Certain Provisions of the […]
Tweet Acquisition of PokerStars A Canadian company, Amaya Gaming Group Inc., announced it has entered into a $4.9 billion deal to acquire all of the shares of Oldford Group, the Isle of Man company that operates PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. PokerStars was founded by Canadian Isai Scheinberg. Amaya said that it believes the transaction […]