Fintelegram has been researching and reporting on the Cointed / Optioment fraud since March 2018. Fintelegram CEO Werner BOHM had a professional relationship with one of Cointed’s shareholders, Charli Aho, a few years ago but not in the case of Cointed or Optioment and before their foundations. Fintelegram was fed through the connections of Werner BOHM (but also from other sources) insider material in the Cointed case, which is analyzed and exploited by the editorial staff. “I’ve been in the crypto business since 2013. As a result, I myself almost inevitably came into contact with scammers and criminals,” explains Werner BOHM. “My motivation for co-founding FinTelegram is to make the public aware of the many cases of fraud in crypto, to protect investors and to help victims of crypto fraud to obtain their rights.”
It is Fintelegram’s editorial guideline to research the truth and to separate fact and opinion. Nevertheless, Fintelegram sees himself in the service of the public. “For years we have watched a large part of international crypto journalism chum up to crypto projects or even turn into paid henchmen. Nowhere is it more difficult to obtain balanced information than in crypto,” says BOHM. “This needs a counterweight. Thus we see Fintelegram also as a research pool, which makes its raw results available to media, attorneys and authorities”.
Werner BOHM was one of the founders of the Canadian BitRush Corp in 2015 and its CEO until December 2016. It was one of the first listed crypto companies worldwide and emerged from a reverse take-over (RTO) with a former mining company (Streetwear Corp). After many efforts, the Canadian financial markets supervisory authority OSC was convinced of the company’s admission to stock exchange trading. At that time there was no crypto-hype on the horizon and the Bitcoin rate was around USD 300.
Charli AHO, suspected today in the COINTED criminal case – for embezzlement of customer funds etc. – was briefly engaged as a consultant to BitRush Corp in 2015. The contract was terminated by Werner BOHM as CEO of BitRush Corp in February 2016 due to irregularities. Subsequently, Charli AHO put itself at the service of a group of BitRush Corp shareholders and supported them to a large extent in a hostile takeover of BitRush Corp. The dispute between Mezzacap Investments Ltd (then majority shareholder of BitRush Corp represented by Werner BOHM) and the hostile shareholder group (led and financed by a Slovak family office around IGOR WOLLNER (HANS-JÖRG WAGNER, KARSTEN AREND, PETER LUKESCH, FRANZ KOZICH, JOACHIM KALCHER) took place in autumn 2016.
The Slovakian FAMILY OFFICE WOLLNER wanted to use BITRUSH’s cryptocurrency technology for money laundering and the handling of other fraudulent activities together with German and Bulgarian companies in the area of “binary options” and sports betting. Werner BOHM refused to cooperate on the basis of a due diligence report and written statements by auditors and lawyers, and subsequently, several money laundering reports were filed, e.g. at the BKA in Austria and the National Crime Agency (NCA) in London. These complaints have been and are being pursued by the authorities to date. As a reaction of the reporting and the refusal to sign a false quarterly report of BitRush Corp, Werner BOHM was dismissed as CEO of BitRush by the former management board.
In order to be able to carry out these questionable transactions the Slovakian group of shareholders, together with the remaining board members Karsten AREND and Hans-Jörg WAGNER, filed t a lawsuit against Werner BOHM at the commercial court in Toronto with the aim of obtaining a majority shareholding interest. The Slovakian group of companies regarded binary options and sports betting a “huge potential” for the developed cryptocurrency technology of BitRush
As can be seen from the judgment issued on 29 June 2018 (see here), neither Werner BOHM nor MezzaCap Investments Ltd, represented by him, have accepted Toronto as forum conveniens and consequently did not defend themselves in the court case. They did not accept the local and factual jurisdiction of the court (forum conveniens) on the advice of their lawyer and therefore did not submit any evidence. As a logical consequence, this civil lawsuit was lost.
Charli AHO and his colleague Daniil ORLOV filed false affidavits to persuade the Toronto court had Werner BOHM acted “oppressively” as CEO of the company. There is no corresponding legal instrument to “oppressive behavior” in Europe and the USA. That’s a unique Canadian lawsuit that was filed in Toronto. This “oppression” was based on constructed allegations such as the misappropriation of over $350,000, even though an audit report from a Canadian accounting confirmed the appropriate use of these funds.
Meanwhile, Charlie AHO has already had to correct his false witness statement to the Austrian police. To provide false testimonies and affidavits before authorities and courts constitute a criminal offense in any jurisdiction.
In return, in addition to the money laundering notifications (still ongoing – we will report on developments in this regard), an action for damages by MezzaCap Investments Ltd against this group of shareholders (Austrian, German and Slovakian citizens) was filed in Austria. This action is still pending and could not be served on some defendants in Slovakia (!). In addition, a criminal complaint was filed against Mr. AHO by the sole shareholder of MezzaCap Investments Ltd, Alfred DOBIAS, for his false statements, which are also contained in the COINTED investigation act of the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (WKStO). Carefully researching journalists will find them there or can request them from us.
We can, therefore, report from our own experience that Charlie AHO has no qualms about making false statements and dealing with shareholders and investors. The Fintech Academy already reported on this experience with money laundering in February 2017.
The decision taken by Werner BOHM in 2016 not to engage in binary options business was confirmed in retrospect by time. Binary options have been banned in the US, Canada, the EU, Israel and many other jurisdictions. According to Simona WEINGLASS of The Times of Israel, many of the binary options business models are gigantic cases of fraud (her contributions here). The FBI and other investigative agencies around the world are working to catch these scammers and as far as we can help to uncover these scams, we will.
