This press release from the USA's Securities and Investment Commission is about an old-fashioned (alleged) fund management fraud in which crypto-assets were the hook by which investors were encouraged to put money into a scheme which was not, says the SEC, what the promoters said it was.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission has alleged that unlicensed financial advice is being given in relation to the development of property by a company headquartered in Perth and that it relates to an unlicensed investment scheme. The facts as set out by ASIC imply other issues, too. ASIC has frozen the assets of Monica Kaur, MKS Property Investments/Developments Pty Ltd (MKS Property), Paradise Property Group Pty Ltd (Paradise Property) as well as against Sadu Singh, Melvin Paul Singh and Stephanie Lee. All but Lee have been banned from leaving Australia.

"Callum Reece akhil"@vitelglobal.com is an interesting e-mail address.

But this is who an offer for loans purportedly comes from.

The reply-to address is akhil@vitelglobal.com - which makes the "from" address all the more strange and suggests that someone's e-mail account has been hijacked. Will the real Callum Reece please stand up?

iSignthis is not an Apple device. Nor one of those iMassage services with mobile phone numbers spray painted on walls. It's an interlocking set of companies with iSignthis Limited listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. ASX and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission says it's been naughty. So what? So its customers are financial institutions buying in outsourced regulatory risk and compliance services in relation to e.g. financial crime.

Fintech, Regtech and the risks they present to your business.

Media Release 1 December 2020 18:00 HK time.

Temporary suspension of the Coin Cart services

You'd have thought that you'd heard the last of US lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the self-styled lobbyist, film producer, writer and businessman when he was awarded the coveted additional position, without which no American businessman's career is, seemingly, complete: that of convicted felon. After all, when you've been jailed for fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery and tax evasion you'd keep your head down, wouldn't you.

But then again, when your entire career has been working with dodgy businesses and doing dodgy political deals, perhaps there's nothing left to do but be dodgy over cryptoassets. A crypto-coin especially designed to be resistant to money laundering: AML Bitcoin was tailor-made for Abramoff. Now he's awaiting sentence and the company behind it is in disarray - and spending investors' money on litigation.

But what lies behind it is even more fascinating and takes us on a global trek from Las Vegas via Texas to London, Singapore and Melbourne - then across the Pacific to...