Follow the People Who Steal the Money (How Are We Still Talking About QuadrigaCX?)
Even though QuadrigaCX is a long dead cryptocurrency exchange that few remember, let alone continue to research, it still occasionally stirs me to action. Most recently I remembered this tweet:
Just as interesting, however, was that another Twitter account, Intel_Jakal responded with a screencap of a person who actively listed Valoris HK in his LinkedIn — in fact, Dominic Melo is the proud founder of the company:
Who Cares About Dominic?
Well, I do. The reason to care about Dominic Melo is because, as founder of Valoris HK, he not only created a company that benefitted Israeli scammers, but helped to move money for Crypto Capital Corp, and therefore the likes of Bitfinex, QuadrigaCX, and Coinapult, too.
What exactly is Valoris HK LTD? Not much:
And soon to be struck off and gone forever:
Valoris HK LTD is, more or less, your everyday, run-of-the-mill, Hong Kong shell company. If anyone wants to, you can pay a few bucks to get the filings and addresses for the company here, but there’s really no need. Similar to Bitfinex’s “office” in Hong Kong, there will be no one present at the Valoris address, and seeing as how all secretaries and directors have resigned, it’s not worth the few dollars it costs to get the necessary information.
Thankfully, we don’t need any of that because Dominic Melo let us know that **he’s** the founder of Valoris HK LTD. So, what’s he up to now? Uh…
- He’s Chief Product Officer for a company called iSignThis, which was delisted by the Australian Securities Exchange nearly a year ago for a multitude of reasons, which you can view here. The security’s trading was halted after what appeared to be very strange contracts that ended up granting directors and execs 325 million additional shares. The price shot through the roof just before it was shut down:
- He’s also the Chief Payments Officer with a company called Cashaa, which like many before it, iS sHiFtiNg tHe BaNKiNg PaRaDiGm fOr CrYpTo BrO! And to do so, why of course, they need a token! This is when it gets personal for me. They called the shitcoin CAS token, and wow is it a stinker:
Anyway, I guess it’s nice to see a guy who founded a company that helped scammers steal billions has moved onto **checks notes** a company suing the ASX for being delisted and a company with a shitcoin and the inability to actually “bank the unbanked”:
The point here is a pretty simple one, overall: it’s possible to follow individuals who have historically done a poor job or purposely used legal loopholes for unsavory purposes and expect to see similar results from the company hiring them now, ie, if Bernie Madoff got a CSO position at a tech firm, it might be a good idea to start considering ways to short that tech firm.
Stay skeptical, friends.