The Haunting Mystery of the $28 Million Crypto Ghost Money Train 🚂💸

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Oh, hello UK! Welcome to the fabulous world of your very own criminal investigation, starring the fabulously failed crypto hedge fund called Basis Markets. Yes, darling, they’re allegedly in hot water for having fished the equivalent of a whopping $28 million from poor unsuspecting crowds of retail investors. Isn’t capitalism a delight? 😏

In a plot twist that would make even Queenie blush, two dashing male characters were arrested in places as elegant as London and near Bradford. The reasons were oh-so-sophisticated: fraud and money laundering, dear reader. The lovely Serious Fraud Office says this “crypto chance of a lifetime” was but an unregistered, unauthorized – cheeky, unlicensed – NFT and token sales scheme that went absolutely rogue in late 2021.

  • These blokes, possibly integral to the fraudulent festivity of Basis Markets, faced the music on Monday during exceptionally coordinated chick-lit searches.
  • The SFO tells us this was a scam-you-cam that rather daintily described itself as a “low-risk, arbitrage-based crypto hedge fund.” Spoiler alert: completely not true!

Under this delightful guise, our charming operators managed to scoop up funds from two fundraising rounds in late 2021, leaving investors clutching some rather ‘interesting’ NFTs and tokens that might as well have been printed from a “do NOT use” sticker. And then, off they scuttled in June 2022, blaming “new US regulations” – as if!

Though the UK houses more failed crypto dreams than a bad rom-com series, Basis Markets might just be the queen of the intentional rug-pulls, allegedly playing investors like a cello solo in a quiet library. Panic ensues as the SFO, armed with their Cryptocurrency Capability Action Squad, furiously unravels this storm of absinth in the form of a full-scale investigation.

While the names remain shrouded in mystery, the SFO implores anyone with a juicy slice of information to step into the limelight. Lead SFO Director Nick Ephgrave QPM, in a statement that was clearly a dialogue from a hunky detective’s telenovela, said: “With our expanding cryptocurrency capabilities and growing expertise, we’re hot on the trail of anyone who’d try to ride such legal thin ice. Today’s raid is but the appetizer, and we’re waiting breathlessly for the next course. Anyone, please? 📢”

Meanwhile, in a spooky twist of fate to Rachel’s not-ready-for-prime-time TV debut, remember the UK gates banged down on China’s ‘cryptoqueen’ fraud frenzied Zhimin Qian? Sentenced to over 11 years for smuggling around a whopping $5.5 billion in Bitcoin (through China, no less!). And what’s left? Why, Queenie got “headed for the hills,” but only metaphorically, to London’s equally as charming Southwark Crown Court instead.

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2025-11-21 11:04