By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 4 – Back on December 23, as covered by Inner City Press, an asset freeze against Stefan Qin's Sigma Fund was sought and obtained by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission.
No defense lawyer was present.
Inner City Press covered and live tweeted it, here and below (and added more on Patreon here)
Now on February 4, the US Attorney for the SDNY has announced that "STEFAN HE QIN, the founder of the Virgil Sigma Fund LP (“Virgil Sigma”) and the VQR Multistrategy Fund LP (“VQR”), a pair of cryptocurrency hedge funds in New York, New York, with over $100 million in investments, was charged with one count of securities fraud and pled guilty today in Manhattan federal court. For years, QIN stole investor money from Virgil Sigma and, in December 2020, QIN tried to steal investor money from VQR to pay back his investors in Virgil Sigma. QIN pled guilty today before United States District Judge Valerie Caproni."
The criminal case does not yet have a docket number as of this writing but the Information / complaint is now on Patreon here.
It's 7 pm and the SEC has gotten an ex parte hearing to freeze accounts, before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lorna G. Schofield.
"Qin, Virgil Capital & Sigma Fund 'held millions worth of digital assets at 39 trading platforms." SEC lawyer Susan Lamarca said she spoke with defendant's lawyer, who said they would only appear if required.
SEC: "This is ex parte, to freeze assets."
SEC: "Qin is a citizen and resident of Australia and part-time resident of New York. He is currently believed to be in Seoul, South Korea and owns these LLCs through Virgil Technologies LLC, domiciled in the Cayman Islands."
SEC: "Qin claims to use a proprietary trading algorithm for the Sigma Fund to generate better returns that an investment in Bitcoin." SEC asks: "defendants to disgorge their ill-gotten gains according to proof, plus perjudgment interest thereon."
SEC lawyer says the assets are in CoinBase and Kraken, who are temporarily maintaining a compliance hold. But it could end anytime. "It won't last long."
SEC: we spoke with both platforms. They agreed to maintain the hold for a couple of days.
Now Qin knows
SEC lawyer: we've spoken with a lawyer who represents Qin in another investigation. We reached out to him. Judge Schofield: I am prepared to enter the temporary restraining order and freeze the assets of the entity defendants, and a document preservation order
Judge Schofield: I would not put the account numbers in a public order. Should I put it in a sealed appendix?
SEC lawyer: You do not need to put it in an order. We may found other accounts. Numbers are not necessary at all.
More on Patreon here.
