Podcast - “I Lied Like a Dog!”
Sittenfeld v. United States – Campaign Contributions as Crimes?
Podcast - Persistence and Determination
Episode 377 -- Refocusing Due Diligence on Cartels and TCOs
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending, July 12, 2025
RICO Section 1962(b): Acquisition or Maintenance of Control Over Legitimate Enterprises — RICO Report Podcast
Podcast - The Seeds of Corruption
False Claims Act Insights - Bitter Pills: DOJ Targets Pharmacies for FCA Enforcement
Episode 374 -- Justice Department Resumes FCPA Enforcement with New, Focused Guidance
Daily Compliance News: June 16, 2025, The Golden Share Edition
The JustPod: Defending the "Evil Genius:" A Conversation with Leonard Ambrose
The Presumption of Innocence Podcast: Episode 62 - The Tragic Toll of Conspiracy Theories: The Seth Rich Story
SBR-Author’s Podcast: The Unseen Life of an Undercover Agent: A Conversation with Charlie Spillers
Podcast - "Ready for Trial?"
Podcast - The Law as a Force for Change
The JustPod: A Discussion with Defense Counsel Rocco Cipparone and Angie Levy on January 6 Prosecutions
False Claims Act Insights - Trump DOJ Sharpens Its Focus on Healthcare Fraud
The JustPod: A murder-for-hire allegation, public corruption trial, and notable acquittal
Podcast - Every Case Is a New World
On December 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that Frank Richard Ahlgren III was sentenced to two years in prison for filing a false tax return underreporting gains from selling $3.7 million in...more
Stablecoin Initiatives Announced by Fintech Companies, DeFi Protocols - Major U.S. payments firm recently announced plans to enable “disbursement partners” to use the PYUSD stablecoin to settle cross-border money...more
Crypto Exchanges and Stablecoin Issuers Announce Multiple New Products - Multiple crypto sector companies have recently announced new products. In a press release, LayerZero, “an omnichain interoperability protocol that...more
On September 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that Frank Richard Ahlgren III pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return underreporting gains from selling $3.7 million in Bitcoin. As we discussed...more
Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) brought USA v. Ahlgren, its first crypto case with tax evasion allegations unrelated to another crime, demonstrating the DOJ’s willingness to pursue stand-alone crypto...more
Hong Kong Approves Crypto ETFs; Crypto Security, Payments Products Launch - According to recent reports, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Trading Commission has conditionally approved the launch of the first spot...more
The biggest legal news of the past two weeks was the Coinbase loss on two of three categories of claims at the Judgment on the Pleadings stage of litigation against the SEC. While it is rare to win at such an early stage in...more
Financial Firms Complete Blockchain Pilot, UK Approves Crypto ETNs - A recent press release announced completion of the Canton Network pilot, “a first-of-its-kind program demonstrating the interoperability of twenty-two...more
New Data Published on Cryptocurrency Market Growth - CoinGecko recently released its 2023 Annual Crypto Industry Report. According to the report, “the crypto market experienced a surge in anticipation related to ETFs” and...more
The Blockchain Bi-Weekly presented by the Polsinelli Blockchain+ team is a rundown of some of the key stories in the Web3, blockchain and crypto ecosystems curated by our attorneys navigating the intersections of code, smart...more
In February 2022, we blogged on the seizure of a record $3.6 billion in stolen Bitcoin (“BTC”) and an accompanying criminal complaint, charging husband and wife Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan with...more
CBDC Initiatives Advance in Colombia and Hong Kong - According to a recent press release, a major U.S. fintech company and “leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions” has announced a collaboration with Colombia’s...more
Reserve Bank of Australia and BIS Commence Efforts to Advance CBDCs - In a recent announcement, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) released details on an ongoing...more
DeFi, Stablecoin Products Launch; Bitcoin Network Spikes Due to NFTs - According to reports, a new decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol recently launched that allows users to deposit the stablecoins USDC or DAI in a...more
On November 7, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had seized more than $3.36 billion worth of bitcoin as part of a continuing investigation into a 10-year fraud involving the Silk Road dark web...more
The legal saga involving the civil and criminal cases against the entity and former individual owners of the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, or BitMEX—a large and well-known online trading platform dealing in futures contracts...more
If you read the hype, then you will have read that lack of regulation, speed of transactions, irreversibility of trades, and hidden identities are positive features of the crypto world. Crypto enthusiasts say that finance can...more
On February 24, 2022, two of three founders of an off-shore cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange or “BitMEX,” pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by failing to maintain an...more
Crypto Payments Consortium Sells Assets; Other Crypto Firms Make Moves - A well-known digital payments consortium announced this week that it will sell its blockchain-based technology to a large cryptocurrency-focused U.S....more
Larry Dean Harmon, the founder and operator of Helix, a darknet-based cryptocurrency “mixer” or “tumbler,” recently admitted that Helix partnered with darknet marketplaces to provide bitcoin money laundering services for...more
Biogen Inc. Wins Some, Loses Some, In Delaware Chancery Court Corporate Records Suit; Southern District of Florida Dismisses Securities Fraud Class Action Against Norwegian Cruise Lines Stemming From Alleged Impacts of...more
Former State Senator Indicted for Fraud, Money Laundering, and Tax Evasion - On February 3, a grand jury indicted Sam McCann, former Illinois State Senator and 2018 gubernatorial candidate, for his role in a scheme to misuse...more
Virtual currency, such as Bitcoin, continues to be a topic of interest for the IRS. Indeed, for the 2019 tax year, the IRS added for the first time a unique question to Schedule 1, Additional Income and Adjustments to...more
Joseph Frank Abel recently pled guilty to conspiring to offer and sell unregistered securities and to filing a false tax return in connection with his role in the BitClub Network, a cryptocurrency mining scheme worth at least...more