Monthly Archives: November 2014

Popular Currency Trading Website Vanished Overnight With $1 Billion

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“A popular currency trading website that gained popularity with small investors because of the high rate of returns suddenly disappeared earlier this year, and it could have taken more than $1 billion with it, Bloomberg reports.  Secureinvestment.com — which was briefly more popular than the widely trusted currency trading platform forex.com — vanished in May.  Secure Investments was linked to a fake address in Panama as well as invented offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and London. Customers were asked to transfer funds to banks all over the world and were met with excuses when they attempted to withdraw the money.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/currency-trading-website-vanishes-2014-11

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Feds say Bitcoin miner maker Butterfly Labs ran “systematic deception”

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“BFL’s offices in Leawood, Kansas (just outside Kansas City) were ‘raided’ by the United States Marshals Service (USMS) last Friday.  Helen Wong, an FTC attorney, told Ars that all three principals had been served with the lawsuit and that no arrests were made. The USMS, she said, was present to ‘keep the peace.’ For the past year, BFL insisted that mere manufacturing delays were to blame for the company’s woes. However, suspicion of active fraud never died down—and only worsened after it came to light that Butterfly Labs’ largest shareholder, Sonny Vleisides, had violated the terms of his probation from a previous lottery scam case.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/feds-label-bitcoin-miner-maker-butterfly-labs-as-systematic-deception/

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Missouri halts investments in Springfield man’s Bitcoin operations

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“Secretary of State Jason Kander has halted investment activity associated with in a Springfield resident’s Bitcoin-related businesses, saying in a news release Monday that Kenneth Slaughter used ‘deceptive tactics’ to convince online investors to pay for the development of Bitcoin mining equipment.  Mining is the process of solving complex math problems to gain additional Bitcoins, an unregulated digital currency.  ‘The fact that somebody is selling investments through Bitcoin rather than traditional currency doesn’t change their obligations to investors, and I encourage Missourians to call my office before making any Bitcoin investments,’ Kander said in the release.”

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2014/06/02/secretary-state-halts-springfield-bitcoin-business/9871263/

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It’s all over: Bitcoin miner maker HashFast to auction remaining assets

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“A federal bankruptcy judge has approved the auction of nearly all of HashFast’s remaining assets, putting the company out of business for good. According to court records, HashFast owes over $40 million to creditors primarily in the United States, but also to some customers in Europe, Russia, India, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.  Last Wednesday, US Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali granted the company’s request to sell thousands of its chips, wafers, mining boards, cooling fans, and older models of its miners.  HashFast’s execution problems appear to be endemic to many of its rivals, including Butterfly Labs and venture-backed CoinTerra.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/its-all-over-bitcoin-miner-maker-hashfast-to-auction-remaining-assets/

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Texas Man Arrested For $4.5 Million Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme

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“A Texas man has been arrested on wire fraud and securities fraud charges for his operation of what authorities allege was a Bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme that raised millions of dollars through a purported online digital hedge fund.  Trendon Shavers, known in Bitcoin forums as ‘Pirateat40,’ was arrested this morning on one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud.  Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, as well as criminal fines.  The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Shavers in July 2013, which recently culminated in a federal judge ordering Shavers to pay $40 million in fines.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanmaglich/2014/11/06/texas-man-arrested-for-4-5-million-bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/

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Feds Begin Their Crackdown on Bitcoin Stocks

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“If 2013 was the year that Federal agencies locked horns with bitcoin, the currency, 2014 is the year that they’re learning about bitcoin the fundraising mechanism. The current, technically interesting, bitcoin fundraising bubble, began when Mastercoin built a way of extending bitcoin’s blockchain so it can do a whole range of new things such as issuing brand new currencies and registering bets or contracts. Mastercoin, Ethereum and MaidSafe are essentially software startups that are pre-funded by selling their new digital currencies in advance.  The question is whether federal regulators will see this as an equity offering or instead something like the pre-sale of a video game.”

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/crypto-ipos/

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Germany sues Swiss bank over missing East German money

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“Julius Baer revealed it was being sued for Sfr110m (£73m), plus interest, over allegations a bank it later bought had allowed cash to be withdrawn illegally.   Since East and West Germany were reunified in 1990, the country has launched dozens of lawsuits to try to recover money stashed by the former regime.  The charges centre around Austrian communist Rudolfine Steindling, who headed up East German trading company Novum.  She transferred the money to several Swiss banks, including Cantrade, and withdrew the cash after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany argues Ms Steindling had no right to the cash, which was amassed from fees charged to Western firms.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11049289/Berlin-sues-Swiss-bank-over-missing-East-German-money.html

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Huge US Weapons Cache Stolen in Libya Now in al-Qaida Hands [2013]

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“U.S. officials said on Wednesday that a huge cache of American weapons stolen in Libya over the summer was far larger than once thought. The weapons are now with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports.  The highly sensitive military equipment was stolen in overnight raids on a military training post used by U.S. Special Forces outside Tripoli.  The 12-member team was pulled from Libya in August because of the thefts.  The missing equipment now includes dozens of highly armored vehicles, called GMVs.  Outfitted with GPS technology, the vehicles have weapon mounts and can accommodate smoke-grenade launchers, they said.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/libya-weapons-cache-stolen/2013/09/26/id/527810/

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The Spoils of the Iraq War – 2003

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“On Mar. 18, 2003, as U.S. soldiers started bombing Baghdad and looters across the country began plundering the country’s museums, nearly $1 billion vanished from the Central Bank of Iraq. Authorities knew right away who took it — Qusay Hussein, the son of Iraq’s fugitive-dictator Saddam Hussein. Qusay was killed in July during a three-hour gunfight with U.S. troops; Saddam was captured in December near ad-Dawr, where soldiers also discovered nearly $750,000 in fresh $100 bills. An additional $650 million was found hidden in the walls of Hussein’s royal palace. The rest remains unaccounted for. Most officials believe the money is in the hands of the country’s violent insurgency.”

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1865132_1865133_1865200,00.html

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How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish [2007]

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“The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.  The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee.  In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

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