Voormalig Coinbase-manager zakt naar de gevangenis

• Ishan maakte misbruik van bedrijfsinformatie terwijl hij bij Coinbase werkte en hielp zijn broer tussen 2021 en 2022 meer dan $1 miljoen te verdienen.
• Ishan Wahi’s attorney urged the judge to consider his immigration status, arguing that his crime was a non-violent offense and he had no criminal history before his arrest.
• Ishan’s mother and other close relatives, as well as friends, attended the sentencing in person.

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US District Judge Loretta Preska has sentenced a former product manager at Coinbase, Ishan Wahi, 32, to 24 months in prison for insider trading. Ishan was arrested and charged in 2022 for wire fraud and providing insider information to his brother Nikhil Wahi and their friend Sameer Ramani about upcoming digital asset listings at Coinbase Global. Reports claim that the group made over $1 million in profit trading on Ishan’s information between 2021 and 2022.

De zaak is een van de meest spraakmakende cryptogerelateerde misdaden en de tweede cryptohandel met voorkennis achtervolgd door het Ministerie van Justitie (DOJ). Nikhil werd in september beschuldigd van samenzwering om draadfraude te plegen en diende een schuldig pleidooi in. Hij kreeg in januari een gevangenisstraf van 10 maanden. Ramani is echter niet gelokaliseerd.

Dat zei de Amerikaanse advocaat Damian Williams in een uitspraak,

Ishan Wahi, a former Coinbase product manager, violated the trust placed in him by his employer by tipping others with valuable confidential information regarding Coinbase’s planned token listings. Today’s sentence should send a strong signal to all participants in the cryptocurrency markets that the laws decidedly do apply to them. The Southern District of New York will hold those who engage in insider trading to full account, regardless of whether their illegal conduct occurs in the equity markets or in the market for crypto assets.

Ishan’s Case to Serve as an Example

Judge Preska ordered Ishan to turn himself in by June 21 to serve his term at the New Jersey-based Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution. Ishan had requested a sentence that was not longer than his brother’s, pointing to prior instances of insider trading that ended in minimal or no prison time.

7. In het document staat dat Nikhil Wahi, de broer van voormalig Coinbase-productmanager Ishan Wahi, een schadevergoeding moet betalen tijdens het uitzitten van een gevangenisstraf.

— CoinCodeCap-handel (@c3_trading) 13 april 2023

Ishan’s counsel urged the judge to consider his client’s immigration status and grant him a lesser sentence. He said, “I submit that there’s no need for this court to impose additional punishment. He has lost his job. He has lost his reputation. He has suffered an enormous amount of negative publicity both here in the United States and in India.”

Interestingly, prosecutors called for Ishan’s case to be used as an example to dissuade other crypto insiders from exploiting confidential information. Some prosecutors believed a jail term of three years or more would send a strong message to others.

“This was not a one-off mistake — this was over a ten-month period […] Having access to the kind of information that this defendant had access to was like being able to read the newspaper a day in advance,” prosecutors said.

Ongeacht het type activa dat erbij betrokken is, hebben aanklagers het recht om een aanklacht wegens fraude in te dienen in gevallen waarin oneerlijkheid werd gebruikt om financieel voordeel na te streven. Op deze manier heeft het Amerikaanse ministerie van Justitie meer flexibiliteit dan zijn civiele tegenhanger, de Amerikaanse Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), om cryptogerelateerde misdaden te vervolgen. De SEC is beperkt tot het toezicht op de effectenmarkten, maar heeft zijn jurisdictie uitgebreid naar de crypto-industrie door te beweren dat de meeste tokens niet-geregistreerde effecten zijn.

The SEC also filed a charge against Ishan and Nikhil Wahi, arguing that their trades involved securities. However, court documents showed that the brothers reached an understanding with the regulator to resolve the claims.

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