By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 26th, 2024
From August to November this year, the police obtained several reports complaining that Hodlnaut or its officials had forged representations associated with the firm’s proximity to a particular virtual asset.
Singapore police body has begun an inquiry into the crypto exchange Hodlnaut. The white-collar segment of the police agency is investigating allegations of cheating and forgery by the firm and its officials.
The investigation report is the most recent action for the tense Singapore-based exchange, which was one of the several crypto companies that were pushed by the crypto plunge this year.
Previously this month, the exchange had disclosed that it has more than SGD 18.3 Million ($13.3 Million) worth of crypto assets punched in the defunct exchange FTX, which led to a heightened impact on its redemption process.
According to a report by Hodlnaut’s provisional judicial authorities, the company possesses more than seventy-one percent of its tokens on centralized exchanges, with SGD 18.4 million being held on FTX including Bitcoin, Ether, and other stablecoins.
In August this month, the company had frozen all its withdrawal after allegedly losing approximately $189.7 million due to the ruin of the Terra Ecosystem.
From August to November this year, the police obtained several reports complaining that Hodlnaut or its officials had forged representations associated with the firm’s proximity to a particular virtual asset.
The Commercial Affairs Department opened an inquiry into the crypto lender for the conjectured wrongdoings.
In an official statement, Police asked people with deposited virtual tokens in Hodlnaut who think they have been defrauded to reach out to their Neighbourhood Police Centre and file a police report for the same. To help in the well-rounded assessment of the person’s document, the Singapore police is also asking for required documents about one’s transactions, etc. Such documents comprise the ledger of the payments sent to and received from the enterprise as well as related conversations.
In a document from EY on November 11, it was disclosed that about twenty-five percent of Hodlnaut’s assets were positioned on centralized exchanges. Approximately 71.8 percent of these virtual tokens were positioned by Hodlnaut on FTX, which has seen an exponential downfall in recent days.
Before the statement of FTX’s downfall, the interim judicial managers tried to withdraw the assets from FTX but could not proceed with the idea. When EY reached out to FTX a number of times to discuss the situation, there was no revert from the company’s side.
When Hodlnaut halted withdrawals, swaps, and deposits on its exchange in August, it claimed to withdraw the application for a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to deliver virtual asset payment service, for which it had acquired approval in March. Eventually, this month, it fire more than forty employees and revealed that it was under investigation by the Singapore police.