Inner City Press





In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYTAzerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .



These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis
,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

More: InnerCityPro

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



In SDNY Stefan Qin Pleads Guilty After Kraken & CoinBase Accounts Were Frozen in December

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 4 – Back on December 23, as covered by Inner City Press, an asset freeze against Stefan Qin's Sigma Fund was sought and obtained by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission.

No defense lawyer was present.

Inner City Press covered and live tweeted it, here and below (and added more on Patreon here)

 Now on February 4, the US Attorney for the SDNY has announced that "STEFAN HE QIN, the founder of the Virgil Sigma Fund LP (“Virgil Sigma”) and the VQR Multistrategy Fund LP (“VQR”), a pair of cryptocurrency hedge funds in New York, New York, with over $100 million in investments, was charged with one count of securities fraud and pled guilty today in Manhattan federal court.  For years, QIN stole investor money from Virgil Sigma and, in December 2020, QIN tried to steal investor money from VQR to pay back his investors in Virgil Sigma.  QIN pled guilty today before United States District Judge Valerie Caproni."

The criminal case does not yet have a docket number as of this writing but the Information / complaint is now on Patreon here.

It's 7 pm and the SEC has gotten an ex parte hearing to freeze accounts, before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lorna G. Schofield.

"Qin, Virgil Capital & Sigma Fund 'held millions worth of digital assets at 39 trading platforms."  SEC lawyer Susan Lamarca said she spoke with defendant's lawyer, who said they would only appear if required.

SEC: "This is ex parte, to freeze assets."

 SEC: "Qin is a citizen and resident of Australia and part-time resident of New York. He is currently believed to be in Seoul, South Korea and owns these LLCs through Virgil Technologies LLC, domiciled in the Cayman Islands."

 SEC: "Qin claims to use a proprietary trading algorithm for the Sigma Fund to generate better returns that an investment in Bitcoin." SEC asks: "defendants to disgorge their ill-gotten gains according to proof, plus perjudgment interest thereon."

SEC lawyer says the assets are in CoinBase and Kraken, who are temporarily maintaining a compliance hold. But it could end anytime. "It won't last long." 

SEC: we spoke with both platforms. They agreed to maintain the hold for a couple of days.

Now Qin knows 

SEC lawyer: we've spoken with a lawyer who represents Qin in another investigation. We reached out to him. Judge Schofield: I am prepared to enter the temporary restraining order and freeze the assets of the entity defendants, and a document preservation order

Judge Schofield: I would not put the account numbers in a public order. Should I put it in a sealed appendix?

 SEC lawyer: You do not need to put it in an order. We may found other accounts. Numbers are not necessary at all.

More on Patreon here.

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA

Mail: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540



Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com