Latvia's Financial and Capital Market Commission has identified suspect transactions and attempted fraud in the domestic cryptocurrency space. In an official warning published on Monday, the FCMC urged investors to "be particularly vigilant, as cryptocurrencies operate in an infrastructure that is currently characterized by lower regulation than in the financial and capital markets." Within Latvia, the issuance and circulation of cryptocurrencies are mostly unregulated, with exceptions for certain types of investment services and contracts involving crypto that require a license from the FCMC. The regulator has shared several details of the "signs of fraud" it has identified within the domestic …
One of four men charged with defrauding investors of more than $722 million through a long-running cryptocurrency mining scheme has pleaded guilty to charges against him. The man, a 35-year-old Romanian programmer called Silviu Catalin Bacali, was arrested in Germany in December 2019. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud as well as a conspiracy to offer and sell unregistered securities. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Three others — Matthew Brent Goettsche, Russ Albert Medlin, Jobadiah Sinclair Weeks and Joseph Frank Abel — were charged in …
The last two years have witnessed a hefty uptick in crypto-centric ransomware attacks. Not only are bad actors becoming more refined, but they are facilitating access to other, less sophisticated ones. According to experts, crypto crime of this nature has been especially prevalent amid the coronavirus pandemic. But how does it all connect, and what can the industry do to stamp it out? As with all groups, the cryptocurrency sector has its portion of bad apples. Since 2018, ransomware attacks worldwide have increased by 200%. To make matters worse, the software required to carry out such attacks is widely available …
The PlusToken controversy, which has led to the arrest of 109 individuals so far, has also reportedly resulted in a titanic seizure of crypto assets by Chinese authorities worth $4.2 billion at today’s prices. According to court filings released publicly on Nov. 19 and posted by The Block, authorities seized a staggering 194,775 Bitcoin (BTC), 833,083 Ether (ETH), 1.4 million Litecoin (LTC), 27.6 million EOS, 74,167 Dash, 487 million XRP, 6 billion Dogecoin (DOGE), 79,581 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and 213,724 Tether (USDT) from seven individuals convicted in the case. According to the ruling from the Yancheng Intermediate People’s Court, gains …
An Ohio man has been charged by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly defrauding 150 investors in a cryptocurrency trading scheme. The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal court in New York on Feb. 11, accuses Michael W. Ackerman of raising at least $33 million in violation of anti-fraud provisions for federal securities laws. Luring investors via a private Facebook group for “Physician Dads” Ackerman’s scam was operated together with two unnamed founding partners, with whom he established the Q3 Trading Club in June 2017. This was followed by an investment partnership Q3 I LP, and an affiliated …