US charges 18 people, companies with cryptocurrency fraud
In first paragraph please read "Three cryptocurrency companies and 15 individuals" instead of four companies and 14 individuals. In second paragraph please read "leaders and employees of those and other companies" instead of "their leaders and employees" -- corrects number of companies and individuals.
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) -Three cryptocurrency companies and 15 individualshave been charged in what U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday called the first criminal prosecution of financial services firms for market manipulation and sham trading in the crypto sector.
Federal prosecutors in Boston charged the firms Gotbit, ZM Quant and CLS Global and the leaders and employees of those and other companies in a case that also involved the arrest of people overseas.Five people have agreed to plead guilty or have already doneso.
Prosecutors accused the defendants of engaging in the crypto equivalent of stock market "pump and dump" schemes that involvedsham trades to artificially inflate the trading volume of various cryptocurrency tokens before selling them off.
Prosecutors said the largest of the companies involved in the various schemes, Saitama, at one point came to have a market value of $7.5 billion, after its leadership began manipulating the market for its tokens and secretly selling them.
Its chief executive, Manpreet Kohli, was arrested on Monday in the United Kingdom. Five othercurrent or former employees were also charged, and three have pleaded guilty.
Others charged were Aleksei Andiunin, the chief executive of Gotbit, a cryptocurrency "market maker" who lived in Russia and Portugal. He was charged along with two of his company's employees in Russia and could not be reached for comment.
Prosecutors said that from 2018 to 2024, Gotbit engaged in a form of market manipulation called "wash trading" on behalf of several cryptocurrency clients, earning tens of millions of dollars at the expense of investors. In wash trading, a financial asset is bought and sold for the express purpose of misleading the market.
Prosecutors cited a 2019 interview Andiunin gave in a YouTube view in which he detailed how his business had developed a code to artificially inflate trading volume for tokens for the purposes of getting them listed on crypto exchanges.
Three other individuals residing overseas who worked at cryptocurrency "market makers" that prosecutors said advertised market manipulation services to clients were also charged.
They are Liue Zhou, the Chinese founder of market maker MyTrade, who according to court papers has agreed to plead guilty; Baijun Ou of Hong Kong, who worked at ZM Quant, and Andrey Zhorzhes of the United Arab Emirates, an employee of CLS Global.
They could not be immediately reached for comment.
Others charged were Michael Thompson of Virginia, who worked at a cryptocurrency company called VVZZN founded by a former Saitama employee, and Bradley Beatty of Florida, who prosecutors said fraudulently promoted his crypto company, Lillian Finance.
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio
Eng oxirgi yangiliklar
Javobgarlikdan voz kechish: XM Group korxonalari har biri faqat ijro xizmatlarini koʻrsatadi va onlayn savdo platformamizdan foydalanish huquqini beradi, bu odamga veb-saytda yoki veb-sayt orqali mavjud boʻlgan kontentni koʻrish va/yoki undan foydalanishga ruxsat beradi hamda uni oʻzgartirishga moʻljallanmagan va uni oʻzgartirmaydi yoki kengaytirmaydi. Bunday kirish va foydalanish huquqi doimo quyidagilarga boʻysunadi: (i) Shartlar va qoidalar; (ii) Risklar haqida ogohlantirish; va (iii) Javobgarlikni toʻliq rad etish. Shuning uchun bunday kontent umumiy maʼlumot sifatida taqdim etiladi. Xususan, shuni esda tutingki, bizning onlayn savdo platformamiz mazmuni moliyaviy bozorlarda biror bitimni amalga oshirishga oid maslahat yoki taklif emas. Har qanday moliyaviy bozorda savdo qilish sizning kapitalingiz uchun jiddiy risk darajasini oʻz ichiga oladi.
Onlayn savdo platformamizda chop etilgan barcha materiallar faqat taʼlim/axborot maqsadlari uchun moʻljallangan va unda moliyaviy, investitsiya soligʻi yoki savdo maslahatlari va tavsiyalar; yoki bizning savdo narxlarimizning qaydlari; yoki har qanday moliyaviy vositalar bilan bitim tuzish maslahati yoki taklifi; yoki sizga kerak boʻlmagan moliyaviy reklama aksiyalari hisoblanmaydi
Har qanday uchinchi tomon kontenti, shuningdek XM tomonidan tayyorlangan kontent, masalan: fikrlar, yangiliklar, tadqiqotlar, tahlillar, narxlar va boshqa maʼlumotlar yoki bu veb-saytda joylashgan uchinchi tomon saytlariga havolalar umumiy bozor sharhi sifatida "boricha" taqdim etiladi va investitsiya maslahatini tashkil etmaydi. Har qanday kontent investitsiya tadqiqoti sifatida talqin qilinsa, siz bunday kontentni investitsiya tadqiqotlarining mustaqilligini ragʻbatlantirish uchun moʻljallangan qonun talablariga muvofiq moʻljallanmagan va tayyorlanmaganligini eʼtiborga olishingiz va qabul qilishingiz kerak, shuning uchun unga tegishli qonunlar va qoidalarga muvofiq marketing kommunikatsiyasi sifatida qaraladi. Mustaqil boʻlmagan investitsiya tadqiqoti va yuqoridagi maʼlumotlarga oid risk haqida ogohlantirishimizni oʻqib chiqqaningizga va tushunganingizga ishonch hosil qiling, unga bu yerdan kirish mumkin.
