The U.S. Department of Justice has released a statement explaining its decision to charge Ishan Wahi, Coinbase’s former product manager, with wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading. This follows the FBI arresting a former OpenSea employee on charges of insider trading two months ago.
The DOJ is charging two Indian nationals in connection with an insider trading scheme. Wahi allegedly used confidential information regarding crypto assets that were scheduled to be listed on Coinbase’s exchanges, which he shared with his friend Sameer Ramani who is still at large. They’ll be presented at a district court in Washington later today.
The SEC has alleged that Nikhil and Sameer have bought and sold at least 25 crypto assets for a profit. Nine of these were securities.
“Today, anti-corruption enforcement is par for the course in the cryptocurrency markets,” concludes Williams. Fraud will not be tolerated regardless of its location and Williams has made it clear that these investment spaces are not off-limits to law enforcement officials.
1/ At Coinbase, we actively monitor for illegal activity and investigate any alleged misconduct. In April, we received information about possible frontrunning of assets shortly before being listed on Coinbase. We immediately launched an investigation into this.
— Brian Armstrong – barmstrong.eth (@brian_armstrong) July 21, 2022
The message is to the point and right in line with their actions this year.
A DOJ announcement now indicates that Wahi attempted to flee to India before meeting with Coinbase’s security department, but was prevented from doing so by authorities.
The FBI conducted surveillance on a shady business where people were trading in crypto on the spur of the moment and at a high volume with no respect for the law. They increased their profits by illegal trades in at least 25 different crypto assets and finally came down to $1.5 million, as police have now charged them with insider trading.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, took to Twitter to address the recent charges. The employee is no longer employed at Coinbase, and the DOJ has criminally charged them for their abusive actions.
Coinbase’s CEO reminded people that frontrunning is illegal and that it eroded trust.
