Department Of Justice Financial News

Sam Bankman-Fried will face his first day in court over a litany of charges less than a year after the calamitous collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The United States government sent a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan on Sept. 27 stating that it opposes the motion by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his representation for temporary release from jail before his Oct. 3 trial. The judge is scheduled to hear arguments from both sides later today.

The lawyer representing Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in his upcoming case against the United States Department of Justice submitted a renewed request for his temporary release from jail in order to prepare for the trial.

A federal judge has ordered that certain bank accounts and properties connected to former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky be frozen following a motion from the United States Justice Department.

A Bitcoin (BTC) price correction down to $22,000 is becoming increasingly likely as BTC derivatives have begun to exhibit bearish tendencies.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has filed a memorandum on Sep. 1 asking the court to deny the prosecutor’s in limine requests. 

The lawyers representing the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a new court document late on Aug. 29 arguing that Sam Bankman-Fried should provide additional disclosures to his planned defense. 

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on Aug. 28 to have all seven of the expert witnesses for Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried banned from testifying in court. 

The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Roman Semenov, one of the co-founders of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency “mixer,” to its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) on Aug. 23. Another co-founder, Roman Storm, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division in Washington state the same day.

Jonelle Still, the director of investigations and intelligence at CipherTrace, a Mastercard company, recently submitted a report supporting the defense in the United States v. Roman Sterlingov, a criminal case involving the Bitcoin Fog cryptocurrency mixing service. 

In early August, sources leaked word that officials with the United State Department of Justice were considering fraud charges aimed at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. However, they indicated, officials are worried that it could cause a run on the market akin to the November 2022 collapse of FTX.

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it will double the number of staff on its crypto crime team, established two years ago. The unit will grow the number of acting prosecutors more than twice, and get a new leader. 

A cryptocurrency wallet associated with the United States Department of Justice moved approximately 9,825.25 BTC worth around $299 million in a series of transactions on July 12. 

A diverse group of United States enforcement agencies have made official their cooperation on crimes related to the darknet and digital currency with the announcement of the Darknet Marketplace and Digital Currency Crimes Task Force on June 20. The new organization will target “cryptocurrency-enabled crimes” such as drug trafficking, money laundering, theft of personal information and child exploitation.

Cryptocurrency trading platform Bittrex is expected to resume customer withdrawals on June 15 following an order from a judge in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The decision does not settle the question of the subordination of U.S. government claims, which had led to objections against its plan.

crypto industry, and said many companies in the space had made a «calculated economic decision» to flout its rules. Speaking at a Piper Sandler conference in New York, Gary Gensler also reiterated his view that the «vast majority» of crypto tokens meet the test for being a security and should be registered with the SEC. That means most crypto exchanges have to comply with the securities laws too, he added. «When crypto asset market participants go on Twitter or TV and say they lacked 'fair notice' that their conduct could be illegal, don't believe it,» he said. «They may have made a calculated economic decision to take the risk of enforcement as the cost of doing business.» The crypto industry has attacked Gensler in recent days after the SEC sued two of the world's largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, for allegedly breaking securities laws by failing to register their operations with the agency.

The United States Justice Department (DOJ) has filed an objection to a motion by bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform Bittrex to allow customers to withdraw their crypto and fiat. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) is Bittrex’s biggest creditor, but its claim would be subordinated under the Bittrex proposal.

The United States Justice Department’s crypto enforcement team is cracking down on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) hackers and exploiters, amid a four-year rise in illicit crypto activity.

Binance is under investigation by the United States Justice Department (DOJ) national security division for allowing Russians to use the cryptocurrency exchange in violation of U.S. sanctions, according to a report that appeared in Bloomberg on May 5. There have been no accusations against the company or its executive in connection with the investigation.

The former CFO of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) was sentenced to three years in prison after embezzling $5 million that was used to trade cryptocurrencies and “meme stocks."

The brother of a former Coinbase employee has agreed to pay the cryptocurrency exchange nearly $470,000 for his role in an insider trading scheme.