Man charged in UAE court over alleged fraud has charges dropped
A man who was charged in a court in the United Arab Emirates with bitcoin fraud has seen his charges dropped.
The man, who has not been named, had been involved in the legal tussle for a long time.
He had been accused of carrying out a large-scale scam against his business associate, and of taking more than $130,000 worth of bitcoin from this associate.
He had previously been told by a court that he was guilty, and this had been upheld at the Court of Appeal.
However, a new development saw the man, who is believed to be from Asia, go to an even higher court.
There, he was acquitted.
It is understood that the man and his business associate had at least agreed to set up the crypto exchange in the first place.
However, it soon led to losses.
The man who was accused of fraud lost a sum close to around $19,000, while his associate lost a six-figure sum.
The reason for the loss, however, was unclear – and the pair could not agree.
The man who lost more claimed that he was scammed by his former business associate and reported him to the police in the UAE.
The initial guilty verdict saw the man hit with a fine and also a prison sentence lasting a quarter of a year.
When he went to the Court of Appeal with his case, he was hit by a stricter sentence of six months in prison.
It was only by going to the country’s Court of Cassation that he was able to be acquitted.
Boston crypto security conference insights revealed
Insights from a major crypto compliance conference in the US city of Boston have been revealed.
The East Coast Crypto Compliance Symposium, which was organised by the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists (ACFCS), saw 100 people from the regulation and investment field gather to discuss major crypto safety issues.
Now, the ACFCS has published some of the key insights made at the conference on its website.
In a panel titled “Crypto and Traditional Financial Services: Worlds Apart or One World?”, those discussing the issue appeared to agree that banks had to do more to ensure that they worked with emerging crypto firms.
“Banks also can’t continue to keep their communal heads in the sand and pretend they will never interact with a crypto firm or, worse, just pout, see the sector as upstart competition and pretend they will go away”, they said.
In a further panel, this time on the topic of case studies, speakers agreed that privacy coins were part of the problem.
“One takeaway that should not be lost on financial crime compliance professionals” was that “[c]riminals are migrating to privacy coins like Monero and person-to-person (P2P) exchanges like LocalBitcoins and Tandem, critical risk points that can help uncover threats for analysts at crypto exchanges and legacy banks”, the ACFCS said.