According to Reuters, U.S. authorities arrested Jon Montroll, founder of BitFunder, a cryptocurrency trading platform, on local time on February 21. Official sources said Montroll was allegedly providing false testimony and providing false documents to the relevant staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) At the same time the exchange is not registered and deceived its users.
BitFunder was founded in December 2012 and closed in October 2013. In addition to BitFunder, Montroll previously operated the Bitcoin Depository and Trading Service Platform WeExchange Australia Pty Ltd. According to a criminal record, hackers In 2013, more than 6,000 bitcoins were exploited by system loopholes, and the trading platform therefore lacked enough bitcoin to pay users.
However, Montroll denied hacking in a subsequent SEC investigation and filed a perjury with the authorities, providing a balance sheet showing that as of October 13, 2013, BitFunder users had about 6,700 bitcoins in WeExchange wallets, In fact, Montroll turned a personal part of the money into WeExchange to try to make up for some of the losses, and Prosecutors pointed out that Montroll had sought the help of other Bitcoin exchanges online three days after being hacked.
The SEC said in a lawsuit that the stolen bitcoins of hackers had a market capitalization of about $ 775,075 at the time, and the current value of the bitcoin was about $ 69.6 million.
The Federal District Attorney's Office in New York also filed criminal proceedings against Montroll alleging that it made perjury and obstruction of justice during the SEC investigation.
Marc Berger, director of the SEC's New York District Office, said platforms for national stock exchanges must register with the SEC or operate under exemptions, regardless of whether their activities involve digital assets, tokens, etc.
