US Court Freezes Crypto Assets Linked to $294K Fraud Case

On Friday, February 23, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued an emergency ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) granting a crypto investor’s request to freeze funds linked to an alleged fraud scheme.

Jeysen Zivan Yogaratnam, a Nevada resident, claimed he lost around $294,000 worth of cryptocurrency after being deceived by an unknown woman going by the name Darina Dubois. According to court documents, Dubois presented herself as a crypto investor who could help Yogaratnam grow his holdings. She directed him to download what he believed was a legitimate trading app called CTRL-FX but was actually a fake platform. Yogaratnam proceeded to transfer his crypto assets from legitimate exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken to addresses controlled by Dubois and other unnamed defendants.

However, Yogaratnam has since discovered the app and exchange were simulated in an apparent effort to mask the theft of his cryptocurrency. Through forensic tracing experts, he identified specific wallet addresses on exchanges like Binance, Bitkub, Blofin, and Tokenlon that have received funds stolen from him totaling over $77,000 in USDT stablecoin and 6.9 BTC.

Yogaratnam’s filing claimed without the emergency order, there was a significant risk the defendants could dissipate or transfer the funds to untraceable wallets, resulting in irreparable harm. He is seeking to recover the assets through claims of conversion, unjust enrichment, and conspiracy. Chief Judge Nannette Brown of the Eastern District of Louisiana agreed there was a strong likelihood Yogaratnam would succeed and ruled the balance of hardships favored protecting the funds temporarily.

The TRO prohibits the unknown defendants, referred to as John Does 1-20, from withdrawing, transferring, or encumbering the assets across various exchanges for 14 days. Yogaratnam was also ordered to post a $100 bond as security. A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for March 8th to determine if the order should be extended further.

Please contact BlockTribune for access to a copy of this filing.