Regulatory upgrade! Romanian exchange CoinFlux suspends all trading activity as CEO arrested
CCN recently reported that the CEO of Coinflux, Vladnistor (Vladnistor), a Romanian Bitcoin exchange executive, was arrested on suspicion of money laundering and other crimes and is currently fighting to be transferred to the US.
Earlier this week, CoinFlux posted an announcement on Medium.com saying that the exchange had suspended all digital currency transactions and that the company's bank account had been frozen. “The investigation process was very unpleasant, our access to the platform was limited, and we were unable to send announcements via email and website. Hopefully we can get permission in the next few days.”
They said at the time that they are working to regain access to the Exchange Fund so they can determine what action they will take next. Currently, however, they are still prohibited from engaging in any form of digital currency transactions.
The exchange returns all funds and may be shut down
Last Saturday, the exchange released yet another update. They said they are working with MisterTango, the financial institution that manages all of their bank accounts, to return all funds to customers.
The wording is somewhat vague. The original text says: “We have sent MisterTango (the financial institution that hosts our frozen bank accounts a list of blocked customers and the exact relevant balance of the CoinFlux wallet, as well as instructions to transfer these funds back to the customer's bank account.
Everyone knows that banks don't host digital assets. This news doesn't seem to involve digital currencies in exchange wallets; it seems like fiat money. They haven't made an announcement about how and when to return customers' digital currency balances. Probably because of what they said before, they said they are currently unable to use their platform due to legal issues.
Nistor's case mainly focused on the activities of Romanian scammers. He is accused of actively helping scammers process their wrongful wealth via Telegram, involving converting stolen funds into digital currency. The overall digital currency market was sluggish this year, but from then until now, this converted profit has been huge.
CoinMarketCap.com lists hundreds of smaller exchanges, but has not reported CoinFlux's trading volume. Looking at it this way, there are probably fewer individual customers affected this time.
Source: Mars Finance
