The Internal Revenue Service has assembled a specialized team of criminal investigators to build criminal tax evasion cases involving users of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to a Bloomberg article entitled “IRS Cops Are Scouring Crypto Accounts to Build Tax Evasion Cases.” In that article, David Voreacos writes that IRS Special Agents are pivoting from
Initial Coin Offerings
SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections Releases Its 2018 Examination Priorities
Our colleagues Joshua Horn, Ernest E. Badway, and Benjamin H. McCoy have published an article about the recent release by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations of its 2018 examination priorities, an annual report outlining the areas of the securities industry its examiners will target. This year, the…
SEC’s Cyber Unit Shutters Another Alleged Initial Coin Offering Scam As Federal Cryptocurrency Fraud Crackdown Continues
Over the course of the last two months, we have witnessed a flurry of enforcement activity with respect to initial coin offerings and virtual currency fraud schemes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC continued that trend today with an announcement that it has obtained a court order…
SEC Continues Crackdown on Initial Coin Offerings With Cease-and-Desist Order
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced yesterday that a California-based company selling digital tokens to investors to raise capital for its blockchain-based food review service halted its initial coin offering (ICO) and agreed to a cease-and-desist order in which the SEC found that its conduct constituted unregistered securities offers and sales.
According to the SEC’s…
SEC’s Cyber Unit Files Its First-Ever Charges to Halt Alleged Initial Coin Offering Scam
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced yesterday that its new Cyber Unit obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt a “fast-moving” Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fraud that raised up to $15 million from thousands of investors since August by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month.
The SEC filed charges against what…