EU Parliament Receives Petition Seeking to Establish Crypto Crime Victims' Fund
The petition asks the EU to take a tiny fee on crypto transactions to be pooled into a fund for victims of fraud and hacks.
Jan 15, 2021 at 8:44 a.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/BTTV3UWEQVDK5AMSRKFAB5F5TA.jpg)
A petition has been sent to the European Parliament to persuade the bloc to provide financial support to victims of cryptocurrency crime.
The petition, filed Wednesday by lawyer Jonathan Levy, seeks the implementation of a "regulatory scheme to compensate victims" who were fleeced of digital assets by fraud, hacks and extortion. To date, 44 supporters have signed the petition.
Levy wants the European Union to implement a .0001 cent per euro fee on cryptocurrency transactions that would be pooled into a "victim superfund," according to a press release sent to CoinDesk.
The lawyer represents clients who have suffered losses exceeding €50 million (US$60.7 million) and is joined by class representatives for the 240,000 account holders caught up in the alleged exit scam by Irish cryptocurrency exchange Bitsane.
At today's prices, the victim's funds lost to the Irish exchange would be worth as much as €1 billion (US$1.2 billion), according to Levy.
"Victims of the collapsed Irish cryptocurrency exchange Bitsane are still awaiting justice," he said, claiming that Irish authorities had "accomplished little or nothing" in tracking down Bitsane users' stolen funds.
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