Mia – Page 62 – Financial Treason & Crime

Maeve Allsup, 16 March 2021

Cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX and its founders won dismissal of claims that they illegally manipulated the cryptocurrency market, causing losses for platform users, when a federal judge in California rejected traders’ “kitchen sink” approach.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged 17 causes of action, including violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and state law. Continue reading “Article: BitMEX Free of Crypto Market Manipulation Claims in California”

03/16/202103/22/2021

Article: Huge Group rubbishes market manipulation claim

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Huge Group rubbishes market manipulation claim

DUNCAN MCLEOD, 16 March 2021

Huge Group CEO James Herbst on Tuesday rubbished a claim that the company used its share buyback programme to manipulate its share price higher ahead of its bid to acquire fellow JSE-listed firm, software services group Adapt IT.

News24 reported late on Monday that Huge Group is being probed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) after a shareholder lodged a complaint against it at the regulatory body. According to the report, the complaint was filed by Kerem Aksoy, the managing member of a US-based investment advisory firm called Glacier Pass Management.

Huge was reportedly actively buying its own shares through December and into January – so much so, that most trades in the (often relatively illiquid) share were because of the buyback programme.

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03/16/202103/22/2021

Article: Free Keene leaders arrested for money laundering in FBI raids; illegal Bitcoin exchange alleged

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Free Keene leaders arrested for money laundering in FBI raids; illegal Bitcoin exchange alleged

Damien Fisher and Josie Albertson-Grove, 16 March 2021

Six people involved with the libertarian Free Keene group are facing charges — including wire fraud and money laundering — related to an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange that federal prosecutors said processed some $10 million since 2016.

Prosecutors say the six people ran an unlicensed online exchange that let people swap dollars for Bitcoin, and collected fees for their service.

The six charged are Ian Freeman (formerly Ian Bernard), 40, of Keene; Colleen Fordham, 60, of Alstead; Renee Spinella, 23, of Derry; Andrew Spinella, 35, of Derry; Nobody (formerly Richard Paul), 52, of Keene; and Aria DiMezzo, 34, of Keene, who ran for Cheshire County sheriff in 2020.

The cryptocurrency exchange used bank accounts that purported to be for churches, lied to banks and told customers to lie to banks to keep up the ruse, prosecutors said in an indictment.

Beginning in the spring of 2016, prosecutors said, the group opened bank accounts for the Shire Free Church, the Crypto Church of New Hampshire, the Church of the Invisible Hand and the Reformed Satanic Church.

Freeman told the Union Leader earlier this year that the Bitcoin transaction business funds the activities of the Shire Free Church.

Freeman said one of his bank accounts was frozen last year as part of an investigation. He acknowledged there is fraud in the Bitcoin world, but said he was not part of that type of business.

“I’ve got what I think are pretty good procedures,” he said.

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03/16/202103/22/2021

Article: Token deal drama between Alameda, Reef Finance breaks into public view

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Token deal drama between Alameda, Reef Finance breaks into public view

Yogita Khatri, 16 March 2021

A recent token deal between crypto firms Alameda Research and Reef Finance quickly turned into an ugly — and public — fight on Monday.

Both parties started slinging mud at each other, alleging that the other party was in the wrong. It all started with Alameda Research buying, or “investing,” $20 million in Reef Finance by buying the DeFi project’s REEF tokens for that amount. Alameda bought the tokens at a 20% discount.

Three days after Reef Finance announced the investment, Alameda’s trader Sam Trabucco tweeted that the market maker is not affiliated with Reef and that it does not recommend anyone to do business with Reef in any way.

“We agreed to an OTC [over-the-counter] trade with REEF; they immediately went to the press to brag. They then reneged on the OTC trade,” said Trabucco. Alameda had wanted to buy more REEF tokens, but for some reason, Reef backed out.

As The Block reported last week, Alameda wanted to buy a further $60 million worth of REEF tokens. But the deal has now been canceled.

So what went wrong? Based on the information that became public, it appears that a mix of competing incentives and the reliance on what Alameda called a “handshake deal” — that is, a verbal commitment to a transaction conducted via Telegram — are to blame.

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03/16/202103/22/2021

Article: Exchange leaders say GameStop saga highlights regulatory challenges

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Exchange leaders say GameStop saga highlights regulatory challenges

John McCrank, 16 March 2021

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The recent trading frenzy around GameStop Corp and other so-called “meme” stocks highlights shortcomings and challenges in the U.S. markets as retail investors become a bigger presence, exchange leaders said on Tuesday.

“The regulatory structure of the U.S. equity markets, in my mind, is flawed,” Jeff Sprecher, chief executive of New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc, said on a panel at the Future Industry Association’s virtual FIA Boca conference.

Regulators have focused on competition between market intermediaries, like brokers and exchanges, rather than between buyers and sellers seeking to get the best prices, and the GameStop event exposed issues with that structure, he said.

In January, retail investors coordinated through social media forums in an attempt to punish hedge funds by buying shares of GameStop and other heavily shorted names, driving up their prices and forcing short sellers to close out positions at big losses.

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03/16/202103/22/2021

Article: Forget GameStop and short sellers — the SEC says ‘OCMillionaire’ manipulated a worthless stock higher

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Forget GameStop and short sellers — the SEC says ‘OCMillionaire’ manipulated a worthless stock higher

Erin Clark, 16 March 2021

Fool’s gold? The SEC alleges that a stock manipulator sucked investors into a worthless company by claiming it was about to become a big player in cannabis.

If you’ve been following the ludicrous saga of trading in GameStop shares, you’ve probably heard about how short sellers try to profit by manipulating stocks to fall in price.

But that’s not the only way people try to play the market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission just unveiled fraud charges against a trader allegedly trying to profit by manipulating a stock higher.

He’s Andrew Fassari, a 33-year-old Orange County resident. According to the SEC, he staged a vigorous campaign in December using the Twitter handle “OCMillionaire” to suck penny-stock investors into shares of Arcis Resources Corp., which had been defunct for years.

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03/15/202103/21/2021

Article: Why Mitt Romney’s call for economic boycott of China Olympics comes as no surprise

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Why Mitt Romney’s call for economic boycott of China Olympics comes as no surprise

Dennis Romboy, 15 March 2021

SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mitt Romney’s call for an economic and diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing isn’t surprising given his political stances on China.

In his first speech on the Senate floor after taking office in 2019, the Utah Republican shifted his focus from Russia to China as America’s greatest geopolitical adversary. While running for president in 2012, he argued that Russia presented the biggest threat to the United States.

Romney said China’s economic strength and large population enable a military power that “could eclipse our own.”

“It is possible that freedom itself would be in jeopardy,” he warned. “If we fail to act now, that possibility may become reality.”

In his first two years in the Senate, Romney filed legislation to combat China’s economic aggression, condemned the Chinese Communist Party and sought sanctions over abuses of ethnic minorities. He pushed for a National Security Council task force to counter the Chinese government’s “sinister propaganda” about the origins of the coronavirus

Just last week, Romney and seven GOP colleagues reintroduced the Strengthening Trade, Regional Alliances, Technology and Economic and Geopolitical Initiatives Concerning China Act to advance a comprehensive strategy for U.S. competition with China.

“We must take decisive action now to confront China’s growing aggression, which includes linking arms with our friends and allies to dissuade the Chinese Communist Party from its predatory policies and demand that China abide by the norms and rules which the rest of us follow,” he said.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Romney is a member, will hold a hearing on the issue this week.

Romney has accused China of unfair trade practices, stealing American jobs, currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.

“I think we have to hold China’s feet to the fire,” he said in 2019.

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03/15/202103/20/2021

Article: China tells UK to butt out of Hong Kong

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China tells UK to butt out of Hong Kong

Andrew Davis, 15 March 2021

China accused the UK of “groundless slanders” after the British government said Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong wasn’t in compliance with the treaty that paved the way for the city’s return to Chinese control.

“The UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of ‘supervision’ over Hong Kong after the handover, and it has no so-called ‘obligations’ to Hong Kong citizens,” China said in a statement posted Sunday (Monday AEDT) on the website of its London embassy. “No foreign country or organisation has the right to take the Joint Declaration as an excuse to interfere in Hong Kong affairs, which are China’s internal affairs.”

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03/15/202103/22/2021

Article: The Big Texas Shootout: Where Did The Deep Freeze Money Go?

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The Big Texas Shootout: Where Did The Deep Freeze Money Go?

Llewellyn King, 15 March 2021

The shootout is a deeply revered piece of Texas mythology, even though the most famous shootout of all was in Arizona at the O.K. Corral. In fact, only half a dozen public disputes which were settled with the gun took place in Texas, but the myths endure and are cherished.

A shootout of another type has started in Texas — one which will last longer than any brief gunplay and will substitute legal briefs for bullets. This dispute is over the exorbitant charges for power generated during the mid-February deep freeze.

The first to draw was Brazos, the state’s oldest and largest electric power cooperative, which filed for bankruptcy. Some think it will be the first in a long column. Then Denton, the municipally owned utility, sued the Texas grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), contesting a $200-million electric charge during the winter storm.

On March 12, San Antonio’s CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned utility in Texas, drew a bead on ERCOT and fired off a number of heavy rounds in a complaint that pitted the otherwise progressive and low-key utility against ERCOT.

‘Illegal Wealth Transfers’
The complaint, filed in the District Court of Bexar County, seeks immediate and permanent injunctive relief. It states: “CPS Energy sues ERCOT its officers and directors, who are presiding over one of the largest illegal wealth transfers in the history of Texas.”

The lawsuit states that CPS Energy plans to conduct discovery under the Texas civil code and its purpose is to protect its customers from “excessive and illegitimate power and natural gas costs.”

CPS Energy President and CEO Paula Gold-Williams said at a press conference, “We are fighting to protect our customers from the financial impacts of the systemic failure of the ERCOT market, and the outrageous and unlawful costs associated with that failure.”

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03/15/202103/23/2021

Article: GameStop Update | Armstrong Economics

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GameStop Update | Armstrong Economics

Martin Armstrong, 15 March 2021

Gamestop has rallied back during the week of March 8th after all the hoopla. Cyclically, it was 13 years down and it was due for a bounce. Even our pattern recognition models picked up the rally starting in August 2020. Quite frankly, this has all the hallmarks of manipulation, but not what you may think. The classic manipulation is to pump up a market touting some player but the pros have already been in the market. This is how the Buffet manipulation of silver was done in 1998 and even the entire Hunt Brothers silver rally back in 1980. Continue reading “Article: GameStop Update | Armstrong Economics”

03/13/202104/08/2021

Article: Market Manipulation Chatter Rises as Digital Art Scene Explodes

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Market Manipulation Chatter Rises as Digital Art Scene Explodes

Brandon Kochkodin, 13 March 2021

A digital artwork by Beeple set auction records Thursday when it sold at Christie’s for a mind-bending $69 million. Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey is auctioning the non-fungible token for the first tweet ever, “just setting up my twttr,” with the highest bid coming in at $2.5 million, so far. LeBron James highlights are fetching six figures.

If you were somehow unaware, digital assets are booming, with buyers paying up for so-called NFTs that give them exclusive ownership of electronic tchotchkes. Explanations for why, say, a GIF of a cat with a rainbow trail commands a king’s ransom aren’t hard to come by. The more prosaic theories say the price per pixel is surging as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mint new millionaires every day and those newly rich digital natives look to spend in their adopted domain. And sure, it could be as simple as a good old mania around the latest shiny object that’s caught people’s attention.

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03/13/202103/22/2021

Article: Whistle-Blower Says Credit Suisse Helped Clients Skip Taxes After Promising to Stop

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Whistle-Blower Says Credit Suisse Helped Clients Skip Taxes After Promising to Stop

Neiman, 13 March 2021

Seven years after Credit Suisse promised federal prosecutors that it would stop helping rich Americans hide their wealth from tax collectors, a whistle-blower is contending that it continued to do just that, raising the possibility that the Swiss bank could face a fresh investigation and steep financial penalties.

The allegations, laid out in documents sent last week to the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service, were made by a former Credit Suisse employee. The former employee said that the bank continued to hide assets for its clients long after it promised prosecutors it would close those accounts, according to copies of documents obtained by The New York Times.

The whistle-blower, whose identity is unknown, is also contending that Credit Suisse lied to federal prosecutors, the Internal Revenue Service and members of Congress during their yearslong inquiry into how Swiss banks helped Americans defraud the government. Those investigations ultimately led to a settlement in May 2014 between Credit Suisse and federal prosecutors, in which the Swiss bank pleaded guilty to helping some of its American clients evade taxes by cloaking their wealth through offshore shell companies.

Credit Suisse was fined a total of $2.6 billion, but avoided even higher fines because it vowed to the Justice Department and a Senate panel that it had not only stopped the practice, but that it would close “any and all accounts of recalcitrant account holders.” The bank also pledged to help the United States pursue other criminal investigations, according to the plea agreement. Credit Suisse’s guilty plea and steep fine were rare in 2014. It was the first time in more than two decades that a lender of its size had admitted wrongdoing in an American court.

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03/13/202103/19/2021

Article: Financial System Fake La La Land – Dr. Mark Skidmore

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Financial System Fake La La Land – Dr. Mark Skidmore

Greg Hunter, USAWatchdog , 13 March 2021

Michigan State Economics Professor Mark Skidmore revealed three years ago there was $21 trillion in what he called “Missing Money” from the Department of Defense (DOD) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To hide what was going on with the federal books, Congress made all government accounting a national security issue, making it impossible to get real accounting of money “We the People” pay in taxes.

Now, even more unofficial and unaccounted for cash has been revealed from the DOD. It’s an eye popping $94 trillion from the years 2017 to 2019. So, add in the $30 trillion in official debt, and that means there is at least $145 trillion in overt and covert money floating around in the federal government, not counting Social Security and Medicare commitments.

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03/12/202103/20/2021

Article: Australia’s banking regulator ends Westpac money laundering probe

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Australia’s banking regulator ends Westpac money laundering probe

Reuters Staff, 12 March 2021

(Reuters) – Australia’s banking regulator said on Friday it had closed the investigation against Westpac Banking Corp for possible breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.

The bank was first accused of breaching the laws in 2019 by the country’s financial crime watchdog AUSTRAC, which led to parallel probes by corporate regulator ASIC and banking regulator Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

In September last year, Westpac was forced to agree to a record A$1.3 billion ($1.01 billion) payment to settle AUSTRAC’s claims.

APRA said on Friday it had closed its investigation after considering the results of the probe by ASIC, which was closed in December last year.

“Although the investigation has not found evidence of breaches … APRA remains determined to ensure Westpac rectifies its risk governance weaknesses effectively and sustainably,” the APRA Deputy Chair John Lonsdale said.

In a separate statement, Westpac acknowledged APRA’s decision to end the probe.

($1 = 1.2844 Australian dollars)

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03/12/202104/17/2021

Article: Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning

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Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning

Elise Hansen, 12 March 2021

A California federal judge on Friday nixed traders’ lawsuit accusing cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX of racketeering and “myriad” illegal activities, and warned the traders “to allege only relevant facts” if they bring their claims again.

U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick said four individual traders and BMA LLC, an entity co-owned by several traders, did not adequately show how they had been harmed by the alleged wrongdoing. While the traders may try again with their claims, Judge Orrick cautioned against the lengthy style of their original complaint. Continue reading “Article: Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning”