The top officers of HDR, the parent company of crypto trading platform BitMEX, which has been charged with facilitating unregistered trading and other violations, systematically looted $440,308,400 from HDR accounts, a civil lawsuit claims. A spokesperson for HDR called the claims "spurious."
- The suit, filed on behalf of plaintiffs BMA LLC, Yaroslav Kolchin and Vitaly Dubinin, seeks an order of attachment against HDR assets, while claims against HDR are being litigated.
- "While being keenly aware of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ('CFTC') and Department of Justice ('DOJ') investigations and imminently forthcoming civil and criminal charges, and while preparing to go on a lam [sic] from the U.S. authorities, Defendants Hayes, Delo and Reed looted about $440,308,400 of proceeds of various nefarious activities that took place on the BitMEX platform from Defendant HDR accounts," the suit alleges.
- The suit claims the alleged looting occurred to reduce the amount of assets that could be seized by authorities when charges were brought.
- An attached exhibit did not specify how the funds were seized but alleged that the executives began diverting BitMEX's profits after becoming aware of possible charges in 2019.
- On Oct. 1, the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Department of Justice both announced charges against BitMEX, one of the biggest crypto derivatives trading platforms, and its senior executives.
- A spokesperson for HDR Global Trading Limited denied the claims, saying: "Pavel Pogodin of 'Consensus Law' has filed a series of increasingly spurious claims against us, and others in the cryptocurrency sector. We will deal with this through the normal litigation process and remain entirely confident the courts will see his claims for what they are."
UPDATE (Nov. 1, 0:50 UTC): Adds HDR's denial of the claims.