Author Archive: David Rosenfield
The DOJ has charged Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at Ozone Networks, Inc. d/b/a OpenSea (“OpenSea”), a non-fungible token marketplace, with wire fraud and money laundering, in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading involving NFT’s. The defendant used confidential, OpenSeal information regarding which NFT’s were going to be featured on its homepage. David…
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The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned Blender.io, a virtual currency mixer that is used in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to facilitate North Korea’s cyber activities and to engage in money laundering of stolen virtual currency. This sanction was initiated after Lazarus Group, a DPRK cyber…
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The CIA’s venture capital company, In-Q-tel, has discretely launched a SPAC that aims to fuel significant returns for former CIA officers. This news is deemed important as the SEC has recently been cracking down on SPACs and initiating stricter regulations surrounding them. This SPAC, titled Chain Bridge 1, is seeking to acquire a defense contractor…
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New York State Senator Kevin Thomas has prepared a bill outlining the framework for crypto-related prosecutions. The bill calls for defining, penalizing, and criminalizing fraudulent behavior in connection with cryptocurrencies. Some of the charges set forth in the bill include failure to disclose the ownership of digital tokens, and if an individual or entity owns…
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How to Properly Handle Witness Proffers in Criminal and Regulatory Investigations David Rosenfield When you think of Martha Stewart, do you think of cooking shows or white collar criminal cases? Martha Stewart’s case is one of the more infamous and recent to come to mind for most regulatory attorneys. Stewart participated in what’s known as…
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Yesterday, March 28th, the SEC announced insider trading charges against three software engineers at Twilio, Inc., and their families and friends for allegedly generating over $1 million from company profits. The engineers involved in this case had exclusive access to various company databases that contained information regarding the company’s revenue. In an internal messaging chat, one…
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently settled fraud charges with HeadSpin, Inc., a privately-owned tech company. HeadSpin, Inc. made significant remedial efforts in the midst of an internal investigation as a result of misconduct by its now-former CEO. Manish Lachwani, HeadSpin’s former CEO engaged in fraudulent activity to increase the company’s value to over $1…
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A new report analyzing the SEC’s Cryptocurrency enforcement activities illustrates the regulator’s focus on Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). Notably, 70% (14/20) of SEC actions alleging unregistered securities offerings in 2021 stemmed from an ICO with 64% (9/14) alleging securities fraud against the public. “It has become increasingly common to structure an ICO, as well as pre-sale round(s), as…
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To Cooperate Or Not To Cooperate – That Is The Question David Rosenfield and Christopher Warren You are under investigation for a white collar crime. Government agents or prosecutors approach you; they want you to cooperate. The agents want to speak with you and ask you to provide information about criminal activities you may have…
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