Securities Commission Slams Down Einstein Exchange in Vancouver Amid Money Laundering Charges

According to the press release by the BCSC or the British Columbia Securities Commission on November 4, the body has taken regulatory action against a Vancouver based cryptocurrency exchange, popular by the name Einstein Exchange. The company was incorporated in December 2017 as a cryptocurrency exchange dealing in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, and other crypto assets of the like.

This came after the BCSC applied to the Supreme Court to appoint an interim receiver, Grant Thorton Limited, which is an audit firm, to preserve the assets of Einstein Exchange. BCSC filed the application after they found Michael Ongun Gokturk, the founder of the Einstein exchange, going fugitive.  The Commission had stated in the application made to the Supreme Court about the numerous complaints that it received from the Einstein clients, for not being able to access their assets from the exchange.

However, to their surprise, soon after this incident, Gorturk’s phone number went unreachable, and none of the officials could be contacted. Einstein also went to the extent of selling the assets to another provider and had told the commission that it would be closing down shortly due to “lack of profit.” The exchange allegedly owes 16 million US dollars to its clients.

Sammy Wu, the BCSC investigator after being unsuccessful, despite trying hard to retrieve the clients’ money, confirmed in a press release that the exchange had misused the clients’ money and it owes 11 million US dollars in crypto assets and 5 million US dollars in fiat currency. Another shocking news about the exchange came into the forefront that the exchange did not even have any authorization to do crypto asset trading. Therefore, Sammy Wu urges the users to do thorough research about the exchanges before investing their crypto assets.

This incident had left the clients awestruck, and they are showing their rage and concern on the Facebook page of the company in the hope of getting back their lost funds. This is, in turn, makes their accounts vulnerable to hackers.