Tag: seized
Israel Seized Nearly 200 Binance Accounts Believed To Be Linked To ISIS and Hamas
Israeli authorities have reportedly seized 190 Binance accounts with ties to terrorist groups since 2021, according to Reuters. Reuters reported…
The post Israel Seized Nearly 200 Binance Accounts Believed To Be Linked To ISIS and Hamas appeared first on TechRound.
: SVB Financial says FDIC has seized almost $2 billion of its deposits: report
Feds seized $2.7 million of Chinese billionaire’s money from Trump-aligned social network
Federal authorities seized nearly $3 million from Gettr last September as part of a sweeping billion-dollar fraud investigation into a Chinese billionaire.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department arrested Chinese billionaire and dissident Guo Wengui, also known as Ho Wan Kwok and Miles Guo, for allegedly defrauding thousands of people out of more than $1 billion. Authorities said that Guo carried out the massive fraud through a complex web of investment schemes that has now entangled Trump-aligned social network Gettr.
Guo, an exiled Chinese dissident living in Manhattan, is a prominent Trump supporter and friend to Steve Bannon. A 2021 Daily Beast report revealed that Guo was an original investor in Gettr, where he touts nearly 900,000…
Bannon ally Guo Wengui busted for crypto fraud. GETTR funds seized.
One of the most moneyed men in Donald Trump’s orbit has just been charged by the U.S. for fraud.
Guo Wengui, a Chinese fugitive living in the U.S., was arrested on Wednesday and hit with a series of wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering charges. The billionaire fled China in 2014 and has been living in New York. He has been sought by China’s government.
A major part of Guo’s alleged fraud was his Himalayan Exchange, a cryptocurrency “ecosystem,” that included a stablecoin dubbed the Himalaya Dollar and a crypto token called Himalaya Coin.
Guo had presented Himalayan Exchange as an opportunity for investors to make money and overthrow the Chinese government via crypto. In reality, their investments were, it appears, going directly into Guo’s bank accounts. Guo allegedly bilked $262 million out of his victims under this scheme.
Since arriving in the U.S. Guo has been associated with figures in conservative politics.
In July 2021, former Trump administration communications director Jason Miller launched a brand new alternative social media platform for conservatives called GETTR. Shortly after, a report from The Daily Beast uncovered that Guo was a major financial backer of the social network.
“Some of the initial seed money has come from [Guo’s] family foundation,” Miller told the outlet at the time. Miller also claimed that Guo wasn’t a direct investor in the company.
However, according to the indictment filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, a large chunk of Guo’s ill-gotten funds were held in a bank account in the name of “GETTR USA, Inc.”
Authorities seized a total of $634 million from 21 different bank accounts containing the proceeds of the alleged fraud. Of that amount, more than $2.7 million was held in the GETTR account.
Guo may have also been more integral in GETTR’s operation than the alleged fraudster has publicly let one. According to The Daily Beast, a host on Guo’s own media outlet, GTV, claimed that GETTR was “the concentration of [Guo’s] whole life work.” The GTV host even asserted that Guo had created GETTR’s torch logo.
Mashable has reached out to GETTR for comment and will update this piece when we hear back.
Guo also formed a relationship with former-president Trump’s 2016 political strategist Steve Bannon, as both are major critics of China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party. In fact, when Bannon was arrested by authorities on fraud charges in August 2020, it was on Guo’s yacht that he was apprehended.
A business partner of Guo’s, Kin Ming Je, was also indicted on Wednesday and was hit with an additional obstruction of justice charge.
“As alleged, Ho Wan Kwok, known to many as Miles Guo [and Guo Wengui], led a complex conspiracy to defraud thousands of his online followers out of over $1 billion dollars,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement.
According to Williams, Guo used his fraudulently gained riches to buy himself and his close family members expensive luxuries such as “a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37 million luxury yacht.”
As of the publishing of this article, officials in New York are investigating a fire that broke out at the hotel where Guo was arrested earlier Wednesday morning.
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Mystery as Area 51 investigator says FBI & US Air Force ransacked home & seized ALL his computers in ‘humiliating’ raid
AN Area 51 researcher said his home was raided by the FBI and US Air Force who seized all his computers,
Joerg Arnu runs the Dreamland Resort website dedicated to the goings on at the mysterious base in Nevada but said he was subject to a “humiliating raid”.
The mysterious based is shrouded in secrecy[/caption]
Area 51 is located in the Nevada desert[/caption]
Anru said his homes in Las Vegas and also in the town of Rachel were searched by a “combined team” of the FBI and Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Writing on the website, he said “each location saw at least 15-20 agents rummaging through our homes and about 8 vehicles”.
“I will spare you the details but it got quite tense and humiliating for me in Rachel and for my girlfriend in Vegas,” he said.
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“All my laptops, phones, memory sticks, cameras, drone and other items were seized.
“When it was all over I was left in Rachel with two broken doors, broken furniture inside the house and zero means to communicate.
“Our Vegas home fared a little better, with only a broken front door and torn down blinds.”
Arnu said that in the process, he has lost “ALL my data, medical files, financial and tax records, passwords, everything”.
“To the best of my knowledge I have not broken the law,” he said.
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“The search warrants are not very specific but aerial photos of Area 51 and other installations came up repeatedly.
“So I have taken those down for now to defuse the situation.”
Arnu said he is now “stuck with thousands in cost for repairs and replacement of the most essential electronics and expected legal fees”.
“I will speak with an attorney tomorrow about how to proceed,” he said.
The FBI’s Las Vegas office has been contacted for comment.
German-born Arnu moved to the United States in 1995 after studying electrical engineering and worked in Silicone Valley.
His lifelong interest in aviation led him to begin researching Area 51 and named his website after the radio call sign of the restricted airspace.
Over the years he’s has appeared in numerous Area 51 documentaries and TV shows as well as contributed material and expertise to dozens of productions.
Area 51 is located in the southern portion of Nevada, just 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas.
It’s the common name of a highly classified at the United States Air Force facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range.
Conspiracy theorists believe the facility is used to store, examine and reverse engineer crashed alien spacecraft, including material supposedly recovered from the 1950s Roswell crash.
The so-called Roswell incident is one of the most discussed and controversial UFO theories in history.
The airbase is commonly believed by many to be the home of the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.
The US Air Force acquired the site in 1955.
However, the CIA never acknowledged the existence of the facility until June 2013, following a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2005.
The base has been a testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the U-2 in the 1950s and later the B-2 stealth bomber.
Declassified documents say it was originally an area for the Army Air Corps pilots to practice their aerial gunnery.
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During the Cold War, experimental aircraft, such as the high-altitude U-2 spy plane, and weapons systems were tested there.
The current use of Area 51 is still unknown and remains top secret.
23-Year-Old ‘Crypto King’ Has Luxury Cars Seized After $35 Million of Investor Money Vanishes
Pleterski’s YouTube channel and Instagram account have been deleted but it appears he purchased articles on websites like Forbes.mc (the top level domain for Monaco) and the far-right news outlet Daily Caller to get his name associated with success in crypto investment. The Daily Caller article from December 2021 includes a photo of Pleterski looking at his phone in what appears to be a private jet. Notably, December 2021 was a time when cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum were trading near all-time highs. The headline reads, “Aiden Pleterski: Meet the Young Canadian Investor Who Is Taking the World of Crypto By Storm.”
The question remains whether Pleterski actually invested any of the money in crypto to begin with, and speaks to just how strange the crypto market has been over the past year. For all anyone knows, Pleterski may have actually invested the money and lost it like so many others since the peak of November 2021. Bitcoin is down 56% since its price a year ago, while ethereum is down 57%. Pleterski insists he invested the money but that he’s just bad with record-keeping. But some investors suspect Pleterski didn’t even bother investing the money, instead pocketing it for himself, according to people who spoke with the CBC. Investors are trying to get their money back through the bankruptcy court and two civil lawsuits, but criminal charges haven’t been pursued, even though some have reported their incidents to Toronto police, according to the CBC.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.