A British Columbia (B.C.) Supreme Court judge has rejected the motion to set aside an order to freeze assets in a civil forfeiture suit, Lisa Angela Cheng and Patrick Hobbs vs B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office.
The defendants, Lisa Angela Cheng and Kevin Patrick Hobbs, were accused of tax evasion, money laundering, as well as committing fraud. According to the Forfeiture Office, the defendants’ companies, Vanbex Group Inc and EtherpartySmartContracts Inc., launched an investment offering with a cryptocurrency coin called FUEL with the intention of pocketing the proceeds.
Allegedly, the defendants perpetrated a $30 million crypto fraud. An RCMP investigation indicated:
“By falsely representing corporate investment opportunities… knowing they did not intend to use the invested funds to develop products they were marketing but rather with intention to misappropriate the corporately invested funds raised for their own personal benefit.”
Court’s decision
According to a report, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in favour of the plaintiff. In the ruling, the B.C Civil Forfeiture Office launched the action to seize assets from the defendants. The assets of the defendants for seizure included their Coal luxury townhouse, two Range Rover SUVs in addition to funds in The Bank of Montreal, which were obtained from the proceeds of the fraud.
Cheng and Hobbs argued that the ruling had been improperly granted in the absence of their lawyer. In addition, the argument stated that the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office had some arguments all wrong. They were referring to the case raised against Hobbs for marijuana possession, which they claim was “overruled.”According to the defendants, the plaintiff arguments were purely speculative.
Despite their efforts to retain their assets, Judge Elliot M. Myers dismissed their plea saying that the court will grant an interim preservation order. Also, the judge made it clear that the assets sought after were proceeds of the alleged crimes saying…
“Looking at the matter overall, I do not think the defendants have demonstrated that the seizure is clearly not within the interests of justice.”
Currently, the townhouse is listedfor sale at $7.88 million whereas each of the two vehicles is worth $90,000.However, the defendants insist that their companies did not solicit funds from investors, and neither did they claim that the value of the tokens would increase.
