9 articles
A letter filed Monday points Judge Katherine Polk Failla to the D.C. Circuit's September 25 decision affirming Roman Sterlingov's Bitcoin Fog convictions, where venue in Washington rested on an undercover agent's transactions. Storm's acquittal motion has been pending since argument in April.
Because 78 months is shorter than the 15-year Connecticut term Iza is already serving, and the two run at the same time, the Los Angeles sentence adds no time in custody. What the case adds is $23.4 million in restitution and convictions on three further counts.
Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang each face one Commodity Exchange Act count and one wire fraud count over perpetual futures bought before Robinhood announced listings. Trading derivatives rather than spot tokens is what routes the case through commodities law.
The $560,000 in confiscated cryptocurrency is the smaller half of the operation. The FBI also came away with information on thousands of people who tried to give.
A coordinated international operation led by Dubai Police has dismantled nine cryptocurrency investment scam centres and arrested at least 276 people, with three defendants now facing federal wire fraud and money laundering charges in the Southern District of California.
Federal prosecutors have charged a Green Beret with using classified intelligence to earn more than $400,000 on Polymarket, marking the first DOJ prosecution of insider trading on a prediction market.
Victims of the $4 billion OneCoin fraud can now file for compensation from a pool of seized assets, but the scheme's mastermind — the so-called Cryptoqueen — has been missing since 2017.
In an extraordinary intervention, the DOJ and CFTC have asked a Phoenix judge to halt Arizona's criminal case against prediction market Kalshi, arguing that sports and election event contracts are swaps under federal law and beyond the reach of state gambling statutes.
James Zhong pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison in March 2023 for stealing 50,000+ Bitcoin from Silk Road a decade earlier.
