Tweet Russian on OFAC list launches a coin The Kharon Brief has an interesting article here about a Ukrainian named Aleksei Muratov, also spelled Aleksey Muratov, on the US sanctions list here, who founded, launched and owns an initial coin offering called PRIZM. PRIZM whitepaper The PRIZM coin in the Ukraine has a white paper […]
Tweet The brother A criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York and deposed by a special agent of the FBI against Konstantin Ignatov, an executive who helped operate a digital currency company called OneCoin and a digital currency exchange, sheds some light on the murky world of OneCoin. The money From 2014 […]
Tweet Ex parte injunction The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC“) announced today that it filed an emergency application ex parte in US Federal District Court in Manhattan, and after a hearing, obtained a temporary order over the initial coin offering (“ICO“) launched by Telegram Group, Inc. (“Telegram“), the messaging application, which raised $1.7 billion from investors […]
Tweet Super kingpin fentanyl dealer Aaron Shamo, who was an Eagle Scout and a Mormon, was found guilty at the end of August in Utah of continuing a criminal enterprise on the darknet and selling fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl. He is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment under the “super kingpin” laws, similar […]
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 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 Bridgemark and Blockchain Two Canadian Blockchain companies based in Vancouver, BLOK Technologies Inc. (“Blok“) and Cryptobloc Technologies Corp. (“Cryptobloc“) have been caught up as part of the so-called Bridgemark scandal affecting Vancouver’s capital markets. The Bridgemark situation started in November 2018, when the Executive Director of the BC Securities Commission announced that he had […]
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 […]