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Cryptocurrency News Articles
Feds Nab 'Crypto' Market Makers for Artificially Inflating Prices of Memecoins and Even BTC
Oct 11, 2024 at 07:00 pm
A handful of ‘crypto’ market makers (MMs) have been charged with market manipulation and fraud for artificially inflating the fiat price of a handful of memecoins but also—gasp!—the mighty BTC.
A group of ‘crypto’ market makers (MMs) have been charged with market manipulation and fraud for artificially inflating the fiat price of a handful of memecoins—but also, gasp!—the mighty BTC.
On October 9, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced charges against 14 individuals and four entities for “widespread fraud and manipulation in the cryptocurrency markets.” The feds seized over $25 million worth of tokens, as well as “multiple” trading bots used in the wash trading of certain tokens, while around 60 different tokens “have been deactivated.”
Operation Token Mirrors got help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS:CI) unit, and elements of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), along with agencies in Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Four of the companies—Lillian Finance, Robo Inu Finance, Saitama, and VZZM—were ‘crypto’ firms that issued and promoted tokens. The MMs—Gotbit Consulting, CLS Global FZC, MyTrade MM, and ZM Quant—are accused of artificially pumping the trading volume of these tokens to give the impression of retail trader interest that would lure in actual retail traders on whom to dump these worthless coins.
Incredibly, three of the MMs—CLS Global, MyTrade, and ZM Quant—stand accused of wash trading on behalf of a company/token that the FBI created for the express purpose of giving the MMs something to artificially pump.
The charged individuals face up to a couple of decades behind bars if convicted on charges of market manipulation, fraud, and conspiracy (to commit wire fraud/market manipulation/money laundering/conduct an unlicensed money transmitting business).
We’ll get to the gory details in a second, but it’s worth noting that these indictments confirm the suspicions that have always surrounded the speculative token sector. Many of the centralized digital asset exchanges that gave these MMs free rein to ply their dark arts have featured on this site in less than savory situations, and they live down to their bad reputations in these indictments.
Also, while most of the headlines surrounding these charges focus on the relatively inconsequential memecoins that were manipulated, the indictments cite instances of BTC trading volume being boosted by a factor of 16 over its legitimate volume. That may wound the delicate sensibilities of the BTC maximalists/snowflakes who choose to believe their utility-devoid token is above these shenanigans, but as they say at the poker table, read ‘em and weep.
Gotbit got bit
According to its indictment, the Belize-registered Gotbit promoted “purportedly legitimate services” on its website while “privately offering clients illegal services including market manipulation.”
In February 2022, Gotbit execs Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, Robo Inu’s Vy Pham, and other unidentified co-conspirators created a private chatroom on the Telegram messaging platform.
Gotbit is accused of artificially inflating the trading volume of the Robo Inu token on the Bitmart exchange. Gotbit staff discussed boosting the token’s volume on the exchange to “above 1.1mil daily,” with one staffer warning against raising the volume by too much too quickly “because CMC itself can detect suspicious activity in the market and exclude volumes from bitmart.”
Similar discussions continued through the spring of 2024, including Pham telling Gotbit staff that “the basic goal right now is to create that FOMO [fear of missing out] by looking as organic volume.” Jalili responded affirmatively, saying, “we have good connections with Bitmart.”
When Pham requested an “official agreement” detailing the manipulation, Jalili reminded Pham that certain jurisdictions are “kinda regulated […] we’re not going to be having those things very clearly stated.”
Nonetheless, a contract was duly drawn up, stipulating that Gotbit would perform the desired tasks for which it would receive $15,000 for three months of activity on a single exchange, plus 20% of the net profit generated by the fraudulent trades, and 2% of the token liquidation generated.
An FBI agent’s affidavit details an August 2019 YouTube interview in which Gotbit founder/CEO Aleksei Andriunin said he’d developed code to artificially inflate the trading volume of tokens to have these tokens graduate to trading on larger exchanges.
Later, Gotbit performed similar pumps for the Saitama token on the Lbank and XT.com exchanges, helping to boost Saitama’s overall market cap to around $7.5 billion.
Saitama drama
The Saitama indictment contains Telegram messages from July 2021 in which Saitama manager Russell Armand discusses plans to “create an illusion of massive buys and new holders as [Telegram] gets flooded” that will “incite ppl to buy more.”
Armand instructed other Saitama executives involved in this deception to buy “2-
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