The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has announced that it has charged and settled with cryptocurrency brokerage firm Falcon Labs, which will pay approximately $1.8 million in illegal gains and fines. The CFTC stated in a notice on May 13 that Falcon Labs, a subsidiary of FalconX, failed to register as a futures commission merchant. The settlement agreement requires FalconX to stop providing services to US residents and pay approximately $1.2 million in illegal gains and $600,000 in civil penalties.

The Fengtai police in Beijing cracked a virtual currency organization and leading pyramid scheme criminal case. In this case, after investigating, the police found that the reporter was actually the suspect. Xie, who was idle at home, hoped to make money through investment and had been looking for "opportunities" to make quick money. Through a friend's introduction, she joined an organization called "Huamouhui" and invested in virtual currency. After making small profits from small investments, she invested 2 million yuan from her family's savings, but did not receive any returns. After being trapped, Xie began to "recruit" people according to the requirements of the pyramid scheme organization, and gradually received commissions and dynamic dividends, making her a key member of the pyramid scheme organization in Beijing, developing nine levels of downlines, involving more than 300 people. As the investment platform collapsed, Xie faced the debt collection from her downline investors and chose to report to the police. (Baijiahao)

On Tuesday, a Dutch judge ruled that Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev was guilty of money laundering. The court sentenced Pertsev to 64 months in prison. In August 2022, Tornado Cash was blacklisted by the US government, and this is the first time the developer has been sentenced to prison in the Netherlands. At the time, the US Treasury Department claimed that Tornado Cash was a key tool for the North Korean hacker group Lazarus. The Lazarus group is linked to the $625 million hack of Axie Infinity's Ronin Network and other major cryptocurrency thefts.

A Dutch court composed of three judges has ruled that Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev committed the crime of laundering $1.2 billion in illegal assets on a cryptocurrency mixing platform. It is expected that the panel will also sentence 31-year-old Russian resident Alexey Pertsev on Tuesday, and Pertsev's lawyer will have 14 days to appeal the judge's ruling. Experts say that this ruling will reshape the privacy protection process in the decentralized finance field and have a "chilling effect" on the development of open-source software that provides financial privacy protection tools for users.

The Hong Kong Police Commercial Crime Bureau locked onto a cross-border money laundering group in November 2023. The investigation found that the group recruited mainlanders to open puppet bank accounts in Hong Kong from September 2023 to March 2024. They used various types of fraud, such as telephone scams, nude chat scams, investment scams, and job scams to defraud victims. The victims were instructed by the fraudsters to deposit the stolen money into the puppet accounts controlled by the criminal group. The group would then withdraw the stolen money from the puppet accounts in cash and buy cryptocurrencies on the over-the-counter (OTC) market. They would also open accounts on overseas cryptocurrency platforms with false identities and deposit the cryptocurrencies purchased with the stolen money before transferring them to multiple cryptocurrency wallets to launder the criminal proceeds. The police also pointed out that the group used 72 local puppet bank accounts to launder more than HKD 88 million in criminal proceeds, of which HKD 6.7 million was related to 48 fraud cases. As of yesterday, the police arrested 7 men and 1 woman aged between 26 and 51 for conspiring to launder black money. They claimed to be a lifeguard, photographer, telephone programmer, salesperson, and unemployed. Six of them were core members, and two were puppet account holders.

Russian authorities have proposed imposing huge fines on cryptocurrency miners suspected of operating in residential properties. The authorities may also consider revising the Code of Administrative Offenses to hold those who abuse electricity accountable.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's governing body, the Group of Central Bank Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), has delayed the compliance deadline for new rules on bank crypto assets by one year. The latest date for the project has been changed to January 1, 2026.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has reached a settlement with the major cryptocurrency broker Falcon Labs, Ltd. to resolve Falcon Labs' failure to register. This is the CFTC's first action against an unregistered futures commission merchant, and Falcon Labs was accused of improperly facilitating customer trading on digital asset exchanges. Falcon Labs neither admitted nor denied the CFTC's findings and was fined over $1.7 million. Previously, the CFTC had charged Binance and its former CEO, and Falcon Labs subsequently changed its method of collecting customer information and updated its know-your-customer policy. The CFTC said it hopes to encourage other illegal digital asset intermediaries to report their activities through cooperation and reform with Falcon Labs.

According to Coindesk, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has confirmed that cryptocurrency ETFs are not available to mainland Chinese investors. Hong Kong's cryptocurrency ETFs will provide a means to bypass capital controls in mainland China due to their unique physical redemption model.

Chinese police have arrested six people for running an illegal currency conversion operation that used cryptocurrency to handle around $296 million. The operation was discovered by the Public Security Bureau of Panshi City, Jilin, and involved an "underground bank" that exploited the anonymity and ease of cross-border transfers offered by crypto. The operation used domestic accounts to receive and transfer funds, and exchanged between the yuan and South Korean won. The service was used by Korean purchasing agents, e-commerce firms, and import/export companies, among others.