Ex-gerente da Coinbase Bags é preso
- Ishan explorou informações corporativas enquanto trabalhava na Coinbase e ajudou seu irmão a ganhar mais de $1 milhões entre 2021 e 2022.
- 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.
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.
O caso é um dos crimes relacionados a cripto de maior visibilidade e o segundo caso de negociação com informações privilegiadas sobre cripto perseguida pelo Departamento de Justiça (DOJ). Nikhil foi acusado de conspirar para cometer fraude eletrônica em setembro e se declarou culpado. Ele foi condenado a 10 meses de prisão em janeiro. No entanto, Ramani não foi localizado.
O procurador dos EUA, Damian Williams, disse em um declaração,
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.
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.
Independentemente do tipo de ativo envolvido, os promotores têm o direito de apresentar uma acusação de fraude nos casos em que a desonestidade foi usada para obter benefícios financeiros. Dessa forma, o Departamento de Justiça dos EUA tem mais flexibilidade do que sua contraparte civil, a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dos EUA, para perseguir crimes relacionados a criptomoedas. A SEC está restrita a supervisionar os mercados de valores mobiliários, mas estendeu sua jurisdição à indústria cripto, alegando que a maioria dos tokens são títulos não registrados.
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.
Cobri algumas histórias interessantes em minha carreira como jornalista e acho as histórias relacionadas ao blockchain muito intrigantes. Acredito que a Web3 vai mudar o mundo e quero que todos façam parte dele.
