A co-founder of controversial QuadrigaCX exchange was reportedly involved in multiple criminal activities in the past, Bloomberg reports on March 19. Michael Patryn, who co-founded Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX along with Gerald Cotten in 2013, was previously known as Omar Dhanani, a person that was involved in multiple crimes in the United States, Bloomberg states. $145 million in clients’ crypto assets was found to be missing from the QuadrigaCX exchange after its co-founder and CEO Cotten died at the age of 30 from complications of Crohn’s disease in December 2018. The exchange is now ongoing legal and financial proceedings amid …

The founder of what reportedly claims to be Australia’s first online mattress retailer OzMattress and cryptocurrency fund manager Stefanos Papanastasiou is about to be brought to court by his clients over the loss of over AUD$20 million ($14.2 million). Daily Australian newspaper The Age reported about the controversy on March 19. Per the report, Papanastasiou told his clients in 2017 that he had spent half a million Australian dollars ($355,000) to develop an algorithm that delivers substantial returns through the trading of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH)-based tokens. According to the claim filed by property developer Savvas Alexiadis, one of …

Bitcoin Private (BTCP) developers have accused cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC of acting in a fraudulent manner in regards to their delisting from the exchange following a planned coinburn. The accusations are portrayed in a letter written on Feb. 26 to the exchange by the Petros Law Group on behalf of the BTCP community, developers and contributors, and published by the Bitcoin Private Twitter profile on March 9. According to its authors, the letter — which was published the day BTCP was delisted from HitBTC — alleges that HitBTC attempted to extort BTCP following unresolved complications arising from the coinburn. According to …

Morgan Rockcoons, also known as Morgan Rockwell, has pleaded guilty to two cryptocurrency-related charges in San Diego federal court this week. Rockcoons admitted both to selling land he didn’t have for a crypto city project dubbed “Bitcointopia” and to operating a money transmitting business without a license, daily news outlet the Los Angeles Times (LA Times) reported on March 8. Per the report, Rockcoons first attracted the attention of law enforcement in 2015 with his Bitcoin (BTC)-fiat currency exchange services, which he advertised online. The LA Times reports that under United States federal law, businesses exchanging crypto for cash in …

A United States District Attorney has charged the founders of an international cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that involved the marketing of an allegedly fraudulent digital currency called “OneCoin.” The announcement was published by the U.S. Attorney Office of the Southern District of New York on March 8. The founders and leaders of OneCoin, Konstantin Ignatov and his sister Ruja Ignatova, were reportedly arrested on March 6, 2019, in Los Angeles. The siblings were accused of “wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering offenses,” wherein they allegedly lured investors to contribute “billions of dollars in the fraudulent cryptocurrency.” OneCoin was established in …

The Australian anti-money laundering watchdog has suspended the registrations of two cryptocurrency exchanges in connection with a drug trafficking case, the agency announced in a press release on Friday, March 8. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) — a government financial intelligence agency that aims to prevent money laundering, tax evasion, welfare fraud and terrorism — suspended the two crypto exchanges’ operations because of their association with a suspect in an alleged organized crime syndicate. According to the joint press release from AUSTRAC and the Australian Federal Police, a 27-year-old man has been arrested on several drug trafficking-related …

The South Korean Supreme Prosecutors' Office (SPO) has announced the establishment of a task force to fight cryptocurrency-related fraud and crimes. The development was reported by the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), one of the largest national public broadcasters, in an article published on Tuesday, March 5. The new task force will be responsible for the investigation — under the SPO’s authority — of fraud, illegal money laundering, crimes and other illegal activities within the fields of fintech and cryptocurrency. The decision to create a special task force is a response to the significantly increasing number of fraud cases and crimes …

The British financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has issued a warning against illegal crypto-related firm Next Coin Market, according to an official statement released on March 6. According to the FCA, Bulgaria-based Next Coin falsely claims to be authorized with the U.K. financial authority to offer cryptocurrency-related services to British residents. The FCA elaborated that Next Coin was sending users a link to a fake website that gives the impression that the firm is officially authorized by the FCA. However, Next Coin is not registered with the authority, the FCA said, claiming that the firm is involved in …

More than 7,000 cases of suspected money laundering tied to crypto were reported to Japanese police in 2018, a more than tenfold increase from the 669 cases over a nine month period during the previous year. The news was reported on Feb. 28 by local English-language daily The Japan Times. In 2017, just 669 cases were reported over a nine month period through December 2017, after new rules taking effect in April 2017 made it mandatory for crypto exchange operators to report transactions suspected to be tied to the movement of illicit funds. The twelve months and 7,096 cases in …

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged a New York-based operator of a purported cryptocurrency payment services firm with a wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions. The DoJ announced the allegations in a press release on Feb. 27. According to the release, New York citizen Randall Crater founded and managed My Big Coin Pay Inc. (My Big Coin), a purported cryptocurrency and virtual payment services company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. From 2014 to 2017, Crater and his associates allegedly developed a fraudulent cryptocurrency “My Big Coins” and marketed it to investors. The accused allegedly lured investors by …

Huobi Korea, the South Korean branch of the world’s sixth largest crypto exchange, has recently strengthened its anti-money laundering (AML) protections, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Feb. 21. According to the statement, Huobi Korea, which launched its services in 2018, has reviewed its deposit and withdrawal processes and fiat-to-crypto oversight. The company will closely monitor any transactions that might seem suspicious, the press release notes. In addition to that, Huobi Korea says it will regularly update its fraud detection system algorithms. Moreover, the exchange is set to launch an inter-exchange hotline in order to prevent identity …

Mike Novogratz's crypto investment bank Galaxy Digital has invested in blockchain security company CipherTrace, according to an official press release published on Feb. 19. CipherTrace has reportedly raised $15 million in venture capital in a new funding round led by major Silicon Valley venture capital firm Aspect Ventures, whose partner, Mark Kraynak, will join the firm’s board of directors. The round also saw investments from Neotribe Ventures and WestWave Capital. California-based CipherTrace will use the secured funds in order to improve tools for cryptocurrency intelligence, anti-money laundering (AML) solutions, blockchain analytics and forensics and compliance. CipherTrace’s reported mission is to …