David Marchant

U.S.-based 'pre-IPO' specialists Marcello Follano and Joshua Cilano are being sued in New York for an alleged $478 million SpaceX securities fraud involving entities in the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands, one of which is allegedly managed by Hong Kong-based Wing-Fai Ng, who is not a defendant in the action.

Israeli firm Papaya Gaming has applied for bankruptcy recognition in the United States in an attempt to stay a $729 million judgment that was entered two days earlier in New York.

TOMS Capital Investment Management LP et al v. TON Strategy Company et al: Complaint (‘$40M PIPE Investment’) London-based German businessman Manuel Stotz and his British firm, Kingsway Capital Partners, are being sued in New York by entities representing investors from the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, and the United States. Those investors contributed $40 million of the $558 million invested in Toncoin, a cryptocurrency, through Nasdaq-listed TON Strategy Company. The plaintiffs allege that Kingsway received “millions of dollars” in “sham payments” under an arrangement that was not disclosed to the investors in advance.

Government-owned Export Development Canada has accused Zhong Li, the Chinese boss of insolvent Montreal-based aluminum supplier Sinobec Group, of perpetrating "a sophisticated international fraud" involving entities in several jurisdictions, including the British Virgin Islands, Canada, Hong Kong, Seychelles, Türkiye, and United States. EDC claimed that Li, who also goes by John Lee, and his family received "over $124 million in cash and goods" from the insolvent group.

‘Insolvent’ Bank of Asia jeopardized BVI’s credit ratings & reputation, claims liquidation applicant NYSE-listed Cayman Islands SPAC Soulpower Acquisition Company, which is involved in the proposed acquisition of insolvent Bank of Asia’s license and assets in the British Virgin Islands, has emerged as a non-party in U.S. investor and SEC litigation alleging a $1 billion securities fraud against U.S.-based private equity group Broadstreet and its principals. Neither Soulpower nor its principals have been accused of wrongdoing.

Eight months after three directors of a Cayman Islands mutual fund, Prestige Alternative Finance Fund Limited, that was owed more than £239 million by three United Kingdom entities under a £1 billion credit facility swore under oath it was solvent, the Fund's liquidators have deemed it insolvent.

KL Capital Ltd. v. HSBC Bank USA N.A.: Discovery Application (England) Records from HSBC Bank in New York are being sought for a £57 million lawsuit in England alleging English corporate lawyer Kevin Philbin and his client, recently-deceased English businessman Kenneth Townsley, perpetrated a fraud involving a Gibraltar trust.

Chinese professional poker player Zhewen Hu, who is also a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis, is suing Rutgers University Associate Professor Yongfeng Zhang and token issuer AIOS Foundation after allegedly losing $1 million in a “pump and dump” crypto investment based around Artificial Intelligence.

Scandal-plagued, debt-ridden U. S. securities broker moves business to Cayman Sixteen years after the company was exposed by OffshoreAlert, a petition to wind up Cedrus Investments has been filed in the Cayman Islands by a Hong Kong-based client who claims to be owed US$8.2 million. the investors – Gordon Timmins Watson – opened accounts at Cedrus AFTER OffshoreAlert had exposed the company and its founder, Rani Jarkas, the latter of whom was banned from the U.S. securities industry in 2014.

Symtomax SPV Ltd.: Loan Note Memorandum (August 2019) Six years after OffshoreAlert exposed Symtomax’s €12 million bond offering as a fraud, the cannabis group’s Portuguese operating entity has been petitioned into liquidation without ever producing any product. Separately, one of its shareholders and officers, Carla Maia, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison last month for participating in the kidnapping and robbery of a financial intermediary.