By CCN: For the first time, FinCEN – the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network – has fined a peer-to-peer Bitcoin trader for failure to register as a money services business. MSBs fall under FinCEN’s regulation, and according to FinCEN, Eric Powers, reportedly a resident of California, willfully violated registration requirements. He’s also accused of looking the other way when knowingly doing...
A law professor has reached an unflattering conclusion regarding the regulatory climate of the crypto space in the United States -- it’s confusing! According to Carol Goforth, who teaches at the University of Arkansas School of Law, "overlapping regulations produced by a multitude of distinct agencies with different missions and priorities" has resulted in a "confusing mix of classifications and...
It’s a case of an old scam in a new wineskin. Customers of electric utility companies in the state of Hawaii are being targeted by scammers who are relying on the relative anonymity offered by cryptocurrencies. The fraudsters are calling the customers of power firms that include Hawaii Electric Light, Maui Electric and Hawaiian Electric claiming that they have overdue bills. Further, the...
LocalBitcoins trader Theresa Lynn Tetley, better known as the “Bitcoin Maven,” has been sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison, a $20,000 fine, and three years supervision after release for laundering bitcoin as proceeds of narcotics sales and for her role in running an illegal bitcoin-for-cash exchange, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. She was...
President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Attorney General to develop a Department of Justice task force on market integrity and consumer fraud that would include crimes involving cryptocurrencies. The executive order specifically mentions digital currency as an area to be investigated and, where necessary, prosecuted. The task force replaces the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force that was...
California-based blockchain and cryptocurrency security firm CipherTrace released its Q2 2018 report in July 2018 and noted the rise of cryptocurrency crime, money laundering, and other illicit activities. One particular item of note was that $1.2 billion has been laundered through cryptocurrency tools such as bitcoin tumblers and privacy-centric altcoins like zcash and monero. Criminals...
Initial coin offering (ICO) operators have long known that they risked running afoul of US securities laws. However, a newly released letter drafted by an official with the Department of the Treasury suggests that ICOs may also be subject to criminal statutes governing money transfer businesses. The letter, which was addressed to Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and dated Feb. 13 but only released on...
A federal court has sentenced a Detroit man to a year and a day in prison and three years of supervised release for trading bitcoin without a money service license, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine. The man, Sal Mansy, 41, has been sentenced along with his company, TV TOYZ LLC. Halsey Frank, a U.S Attorney, announced. Mansy pleaded guilty to the charges in May of...