Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Mahi Sall is the CEO & Founder of FinXpair, a Berlin-based strategic advisory boutique firm focu[...]
Criminal Past Haunts Surviving Founder of Troubled Crypto Exchange
Bloomberg | By Doug Alexande and Matt Robinson | March 19, 2019
His crimes: identity theft related to a bank-and-credit card scam. His sentence: 18 months in U.S. federal prison and, later, deportation to Canada.
Once there, Omar Dhanani underwent a remarkable transformation -- into a new identity and the wild world of cryptocurrencies.
Dhanani, now known as Michael Patryn, has emerged as an enigmatic figure in the strange case of Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp., the digital exchange owner that hasn’t been able to find C$260 million ($195 million) of clients’ cash and cryptocurrencies. Patryn co-founded Quadriga five years ago with the late Gerry Cotten, whose sudden death in December at age 30 left the Vancouver-based firm in shambles.
Patryn denied he was Dhanani in a Feb. 8 report in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper and disputed a subsequent report linking him to a criminal past. But Canadian records obtained by Bloomberg News confirm he legally changed his name -- twice: in 2003 and in 2008.
The revelation adds a new layer to the mystery surrounding Quadriga, whose closure in January left 115,000 clients wondering if they’ll ever get their money back. Cotten ran the operation mostly from his laptop, so his death while traveling in India threw the business into disarray. The firm has been under creditor protection since February, with Ernst & Young working to unravel the firm’s dealings. Digital storage accounts used by Quadriga to hold Bitcoin for clients had been empty for months before the CEO’s death, according to E&Y.
See: Another Canadian Crypto Exchange Under Fire
Patryn declined to comment about his criminal record or his name change.
Patryn changed his name from Omar Dhanani to Omar Patryn with the British Columbia government in March 2003. Five years later, he registered a name change to Michael Patryn in the same Canadian province.
In the U.S., Dhanani had been charged with numerous crimes. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit credit-and-bank card fraud at the age of 22 in 2005, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department. Dhanani helped operate shadowcrew.com, a now defunct marketplace for trafficking stolen credit and bank card numbers. Dhanani also admitted guilt in 2007 to separate criminal cases for burglary, grand larceny and computer fraud, according to California state court records.
After serving his time, the U.S. deported him to Canada, where he reinvented himself as a Bitcoin entrepreneur. Patryn calls himself a "fintech advisor and portfolio manager" in his LinkedIn profile, which also lists him as founder and chairman of Vancouver-based Fintech Ventures Group since 2015, described as “Canada’s first incubator for blockchain related startup companies".
Patryn has been trying to bury his past. Last July, he hired a firm to purge unflattering material about him from the internet. One of the posts was a complaint about Omar Dhanani and a defunct online business called Midas Gold Exchange Inc., which the Canadian government listed Omar Patryn as its sole director. Documents filed in a related lawsuit mention a Reddit post that linked Patryn to Quadriga.
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Read More
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Read More
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Read More
Read More
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Read More
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Read More
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Read More
Read More
Guest Post | March 28, 2023 Introduction Since the 1970s, global finance has seen significant changes that have impacted millions of people. The development of mobile phones and other technologies has enabled new ways to make and manage payments, invest money, and take out loans. But not everyone has been able to benefit from these technological advances. In particular, marginalized communities often lack access to financial services that can help improve their lives. The importance of financial systems The importance of financial systems is often overlooked in the development community. While there have been many innovations in technology and business models, we've failed to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the financial sector. As a result, millions of people still lack access to essential banking products and services, and even more so if you look at those living on less than $2 per day. What's most alarming is that this trend isn't new: it has been going on for decades. In fact, according to data from the World Bank Group's Global Financial Development Database (GDFD), only 1% of all adults worldwide had access to formal savings accounts as recently as 1990 - a number which rose by ...
Read More
Read More
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Read More
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