Another Raid in Vienna
Yesterday various Austrian media outlets reported about a new raid of COINTED offices (find our reports on the case here). This time, the Vienna offices of COINTED were raided by the enforcement agencies on behalf of the Public Prosecutor for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKSTO) and possible evidence was seized. COINTED has been under investigation for several months on suspicion of serious commercial fraud, chain letters and pyramid schemes and breaches of the prospectus obligation.
According to media reports, the investigations against COINTED have been extended towards misappropriation of customer funds. That’s not surprising, it’s just consistent with the facts. As already reported several times, many customers and investors have complained that they do not receive their money and payments from COINTED. Hence, the investigating authorities must deal with these facts.
In the meantime, both COINTED founders, Christopher RIEDER and Wolfgang THALER, are abroad and therefore intangible. Officially, these guys are not on the run but on business trips. The two remaining shareholders of COINTED LTD, Charli AHO, and Daniil ORLOV remained in Austria, yet.
COINTED Involvement in OPTIOMENT
Apparently, the evidence of the involvement of COINTED and its people in the OPTIOMENT fraud has intensified. As is well known, the COINTED founder Christopher RIEDER is listed in the OPTIOMENT files as a suspect and one of the schemes’ masterminds. In our opinion, however, this does not reflect the reality. OPTIOMENT cannot be reduced to the person RIEDER, but also includes his company COINTED.
The facts clearly show that the COINTED organization was used to send investor funds into the OPTIOMENT network. The crypto-ATMs of COINTED and their crypto exchange office were a very important element of the OPTIOMENT schema. In this respect, the authorities had to take further measures to secure evidence and expand their investigations. Actually, the authorities need to look into the right direction and ask the right people to find answers and funds. They need to draw the lines between the group of people that perform those crypto-scams with changing names.
The role of diplomat Stephan WELK
An interesting person in connection with COINTED and OPTIOMENT is the German diplomat Stephan WELK. We already mentioned his possbile involvement in an earlier telegram. According to insiders, there have been contacts and discussions between Christopher RIEDER and Stephan WELK. The German Gerlach Report purports to know that Stephan WELK is the mastermind behind OPTIOMENT. However, no evidence or further explanation was provided to support this allegation. IT’s a fact, however, that Stephan WELK is massively involved in the global crypto-scene and moves funds and investors on a large scale. Moreover, he has excellent contacts to the Austrian crypto-scene and in particular to the COINTED competitor BTC Management GmbH.
According to the information available to us, it was also Stephan WELK who was originally supposed to get COINTED a banking license or the banking partner in Germany. It didn’t turn out that way. Stephan WELK is also involved in the NEXUS GLOBAL crypto-MLM system set up by the German MLM artists Christian Michel SCHEIBENER and Michael THOMALE. The latter is part of Christopher RIEDER‘s extended network.
A forward-looking statement
OPTIOMENT and COINTED are only the elements of a domino system of crypto-schemes that have begun to fall. We expect the next falling stones in the area of crypto-mining in the COINTED environment and would definitely not be surprised to find further connections to Dubai, Hongkong, and Shanghai. Austrians, unfortunately, play a prominent role in the dark side of the crypto-universe.
