On June 7, the United States government task force seized more than $2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to pay a ransom following an attack on the Colonial Pipeline system. A warrant filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California shows that authorities recovered 63.7 BTC. As news of the recovery spread through mainstream media, some outlets suggested that the U.S. government somehow hacked the Bitcoin address in order to extract the funds. For example, University of Michigan professor and New York Times contributor Justin Wolfers tweeted: News that the government has figured out how to snatch …

Coinbase chief security officer Philip Martin has refuted suggestions the American crypto exchange was involved in any seizure of crypto assets related to the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. Martin took to Twitter on Tuesday to explain the firm’s involvement, or lack of it, with the Department of Justice’s warrant for the seizure of Bitcoin. “Coinbase was not the target of the warrant and did not receive the ransom or any part of the ransom at any point. We also have no evidence that the funds went through a Coinbase account/wallet.” 1/ I've seen a bunch of incorrect claims that …

United States authorities have hit a major malware operator, with help from leading blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced the seizure of $454,530.19 in cryptocurrency from NetWalker, a ransomware operator the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges to have targeted hospitals globally amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Piggybacking on the DoJ's announcement was Chainalysis, which took the opportunity to advertise the firm's involvement in tracking down NetWalker hardware in Bulgaria as well as Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins. The DoJ arrested Vachon-Desjardins, a Canadian national who it alleges to be an affiliate of the NetWalker network who garnered $27.6 million …

For Jeremy Spence, also known as "Coin Signals," the news just gets worse. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has unveiled civil fraud charges against Spence for his investment scheme, which allegedly suckered investors out of over $5 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) based on false or misleading statements. As Cointelegraph reported, the Department of Justice arrested Spence earlier today on charges of wire fraud and commodities fraud that have maximum sentences of up to 30 years combined. The CFTC's civil complaint looks to return Spence's allegedly ill-gotten gains back to investors and to bar Spence from trading in commodity interest …

United States authorities have brought criminal charges against a crypto trader whom they say defrauded investors out of over $5 million. The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that it had arrested Jeremy Spence. Between 2017 and 2019, 24-year-old Spence operated a crypto investment scheme under the name "Coin Signals," primarily via Twitter and Discord. The announcement quoted Federal Bureau of Investigation Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney as saying: “As alleged, Jeremy Spence misrepresented the success of his investment platform in order to entice people to send money his way. Because his trading was less than profitable and significantly less successful …

A recently released U.S. Department of Justice audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) practices in regards to darknet criminal investigations concluded that the law enforcement agency is in disarray — and an overarching "cryptocurrency support strategy" might be among the solutions. According to an unclassified version of the audit released on Thursday, the FBI’s current darknet investigation efforts are — perhaps ironically — hampered by a “decentralized” set of practices, policies, and training programs, as well as compartmentalized intelligence leading to “redundant” efforts. Notably, the audit found that there are two separate Virtual Currency Teams that assist with …

A Manhattan court has sentenced the operator of the fraudulent crypto investment firm Centra Tech to a year and a day in prison. Per a Tuesday announcement from the Department of Justice, Robert Farkas successfully solicited $25 million in investment during the 2017 initial coin offering boom. The ICO famously included promotion from boxer Floyd Mayweather and musician DJ Khaled, both of whom got in legal trouble for failing to disclose that they were paid for their participation. On top of the celebrity endorsements, Farkas' scheme included lies about Centra Tech's licensing as a money services business in 38 states, …

A young Russian citizen and his co-conspirators came within an inch of carrying out a major ransomware attack against Tesla — unaware that their target had already turned them in. Last week, the United States Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) unsealed a criminal complaint against a conspirator in a thwarted ransomware plot against the electric car maker Tesla. On Aug. 22, the Bureau arrested 27 year-old Russian citizen Pavel Kriuchkov in Los Angeles, who had allegedly spent much of his month in the U.S. attempting to recruit a Tesla staffer at the firm’s Gigafactory Nevada site to collude on a nefarious …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note DeFi has stolen the show lately. Spectacular rises and falls of unaudited tokens named after meme-able foods changing hands via ascendant liquidity pools have left many of us unimaginative observers mostly blinking. In this area, I can offer no particularly hot takes beyond the line that keeps coming to me: “This does not end well.” Chalk it up to some midwestern assumption that money you make too quickly is never truly yours. But the situation with DeFi and yield …

After a lengthy joint investigation with the American FBI, German police have seized over 25 millions euros worth of cryptocurrency associated with the illegal movie streaming site movie2k.to. Shuttered in spring 2013 due to copyright infringement concerns, the site’s two main operators are accused of having distributed over 880,000 pirated copies of films, together with their accomplices, via the site between fall 2018 and spring 2013. They have been charged with operating an illegal streaming service, which enabled users to watch pirated films without downloading them. One of the two, who worked as the site’s programmer, has been in police …

The two Nigerians jetsetters who filled their Instagram accounts with pictures of their ostentatious wealth were extradited from Dubai to the United States. According to the FBI, they were able to convert millions of dollars into Bitcoin (BTC) via the Gemini exchange. Transaction summary for Bitcoin address 16AtGJbaxL2kmzx4mW5ocpT2ysTWxmacWn. Source: Crystal Blockchain The two are Olalekan Jacob Ponle, also known as “Mr. Woodbery,” and “Mark Kain,” and Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, who used the aliases “Ray Hushpuppi” and “Hush”. The FBI complaint focused on the former’s activities and how he used Bitcoin to transfer the stolen funds. Business email compromise — 1,500 …

In a May 7 post, Telegram founder Pavel Durov called the United States a “police state” and discouraged entrepreneurs from moving their businesses to Silicon Valley. Perhaps exhausted by the legal battles around Telegram’s beleaguered token offering, Durov berated the U.S. in his latest post “7 Reasons Not To Move To The [Silicon] Valley.” In the post, he criticized it both as a place to do business and a place to live. The post was only announced in Durov’s Russian language Telegram channel and was published in Russian. Telegram was pressured by FBI The number one reason, in Durov’s opinion, …