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    AAX Executives Arrested in Hong Kong

    According to local media reports, Hong Kong police have arrested two executives of cryptocurrency exchange AAX on charges of fraud and deceiving the police.

    Weigao Capital CEO Liang Haoming and former AAX CEO Thor Chan were arrested on December 23. Local authorities accused them of using “system maintenance” as an excuse to delay customer withdrawals funds due to liquidity problems.

    One of the two executives is also alleged to have lied to police about his work schedule in the company, deliberately misleading law enforcement.

    Two bank accounts of AAX, as well as bank accounts and assets of the executive branch, have been frozen. A third executive is believed to have fled abroad with an AAX wallet and private keys that police believe contain around $30 million in digital assets. His property in Hong Kong was confiscated by the police. As part of the investigation, Hong Kong authorities are working closely with foreign investigators to track down the funds.

    The Hong Kong-based platform has been down since mid-November for “system maintenance,” leaving 2 million registered users without access to their funds. Since then, local police have received more than 337 reports from victims in China, Taiwan, Italy, and France.

    Withdrawals were halted by AAX on November 14, citing a glitch during the exchange’s system upgrade. The company assured its community that the withdrawal halt has nothing to do with the collapse of FTX as rumored.

    A few weeks later, AAX’s vice president Ben Caselin stepped down. He confirmed on Twitter that he left the crypto exchange, saying that despite his community efforts, the initiatives he proposed have not been accepted. He describes his media role as “hollow”.

    In Nigeria, the outage of AAX resulted in users harassing former employees of the exchange’s Lagos office.

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