Tweet A 22-year-old California man named Wyatt Pasek, was sentenced on August 26, 2019, to more than 17 years in prison in California for selling fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Pasek sold drugs on the darknet on a marketplace under the name “OxyGod”, and was paid with Bitcoin. The proceeds of […]
Tweet Another Bitcoin CEO was killed in Kerala, India today over losses that he was allegedly unable to pay back, according to news reports in India. CEO Abdul Shakoor allegedly lost several millions of dollars in Bitcoin and when he was unable to pay it back, he was tortured and beat up by what appear to […]
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 […]