US Regulators Announce Charges and Sentences for Crypto Parties

According to CoinDesk, while attention was focused on exchange-traded funds earlier this month, federal regulators in the U.S. announced charges or sentences for various crypto parties. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged the CEO of Future FinTech, Shanchun Huang, with manipulative trading and failing to disclose his beneficial ownership in Future FinTech prior to becoming the company's CEO in 2020. Future FinTech acquired a Chinese bitcoin mining firm in 2021, though this wasn't part of the SEC complaint. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged a company called Debiex and an individual named Zhang Cheng Yang with misappropriating customer funds. A federal judge sentenced Marco Ruiz Ochoa, a promoter for IcomTech, to five years in prison, two years of supervised release, and nearly $1 million in forfeiture. IcomTech was a crypto Ponzi scheme, the Department of Justice alleged, and Ochoa pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud last September. Raul Rodriguez, who used LocalBitcoins to convert bitcoin and other cryptos for customers, pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. The DOJ alleged he converted more than $5 million over a 6-year period in Florida. Mark Scott, a former partner at law firm Locke Lord LLP, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted over four years ago of laundering some $400 million for OneCoin, a multilevel marketing scam.