EU and UK Policies Aided Crypto Criminals to Pocket Billions of Euros
BRUSSELS: Today an
unprecedented complaint was lodged with the EU Ombudsman, asking for
intervention to convince the European Commission to establish a
compensation fund for the ever increasing victims of
crypto criminals. The proposed compensation is to be funded by
cryptocurrency relay fees, the “Nakamoto” coins, and contributions by
social media, crypto exchanges, and domain privacy providers.
The complaint filed
by lawyer Dr. Jonathan Levy on behalf of victims, whose claims totaling
over €27 million, is aimed not only at the European Commission but
singles out the United Kingdom and several other
EU member states as safe havens for crypto criminals. The complaint
coincides with recent exposes of the One Coin / One World Ponzi scheme
which has defrauded victims of over €4 billion since 2017. The scheme
operates from the EU’s own domain at https://www.onelife.eu
The EU Commission is
accused of shirking their duties to enforce and apply Anti Money
Laundering and Payment Processing rules to cryptocurrencies, allowing
member states to pursue policies of nonenforcement,
and failing to halt ongoing criminal operations brought to its
attention. The EU Commission has also evaded the primary question: Are
blockchain and cryptocurrencies subject to the EU’s sweeping General
Data Protection Rules (GDPR)?
Dr. Jonathan Levy
represents the Victims and the National Liberal Party, a UK political
party with a platform that includes cryptocurrency. Dr. Levy has long
criticized the United Kingdom’s handling of cryptocurrency
related claims. According to Dr. Levy, “The United Kingdom and
European Union have rolled out a welcome sign for crypto criminals and
provided them unhindered access to Top Level Domains like .EU and .IO,
their banking system, companies registration, and
have turned a blind eye to the largest transfer of wealth to
international criminal organizations since World War Two.”
The Cryptocurrency
Victims are from the Europe, North America, Africa, Australia and Asia
and the claims involve a variety of criminal hacking, extortion,
identity theft, online casinos, crypto mining, Initial
Coin Offerings, bitmixers, unlicensed trading platforms and pyramid and
Ponzi schemes, many of which are ongoing, notorious and known to the EU
and United Kingdom law enforcement agencies including the
aforementioned One Coin.
A copy of the complaint is here
Dr. Jon Levy is a solicitor who specialises in transnational law and private international law. He has represented the former president of the Republic of China, Chen Shuibian, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and numerous African entities and political figures. He has been engaged by clients against the US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), CIA, US Army, and UK Cabinet. As a litigator he specialises in transnational asset recovery and has taken up cases against the Vatican Bank, UBS AG, the Swiss National Bank, Emaar Corporation, and many others.