Polish Government Seizes €400 Million from Cryptocurrency Exchange

There is emerging news that the Polish government had seized €400 million from an account at Cooperative Bank in Poland associated with Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency exchange. It was reported earlier that the investigation and seizure were connected to Columbian cartels, a claim that has been neither confirmed or denied by Bitfinex. The €400 million may be connected with the €400,000 defrauding of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The event occurred while an embassy was being constructed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It has been reported that there are investigations associated with two companies that received over $371 million worth of deposits to their accounts. One of the accounts may be tied to Bitfinex as documents had been posted in which Bitfinex tells their customers about an account at the bank where the money had been seized.

A Polish Bitfinex user on a Polish bitcoin forum has stated that he was called as a witness for a case because he had been sent money from Bitfinex by Crypto sp z o.o and their accounts were later blocked. There is suspicion that Crypto sp z o.o and Crypto Capital Corporation, their parent company, are connected to drug trafficking networks that are using cryptocurrency conversion to launder their money. No charges have yet been filed as the Polish government and prosecutors are waiting for the cooperation of Interpol and Europol.

There has been a lot of controversy concerning Bitfinex and Tether, their sister company, since they were subpoenaed in December for reasons that were not disclosed to the public. Wells Fargo & Co. reportedly working with the companies in 2017 as a correspondent bank. Bitfinex quickly dropped the lawsuit against Wells Fargo shortly after they filed it. After a blogger, Bitfinex'ed, posted about his concerns with how obscure the company's bank accounts were, Bitfinex threatened to take legal action.

There has also been speculation that Tether was covering its deficit with the aid of Bitfinex. After Tether reportedly ended its involvement with an outside auditor, suspicious rose even higher.