JPEX crypto trade has been named in at the least 83 complaints to the Hong Kong police as of Friday, the South China Morning Submit reported on Sept. 16. The complaints contain cryptocurrencies value $4.3 million, the report famous.
Raymond Siu Chak-yee, commissioner of police, disclosed on Saturday that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Fee (SFC) filed an official police report towards JPEX two days in the past. He added that the police’s business crime bureau is investigating the matter.
SFC calls out JPEX’s ‘suspicious options’
The surge in complaints comes after the SFC issued a assertion on Sept. 13, warning Hong Kong customers that JPEX is working with no license. JPEX was positioned on the SFC’s Alert Checklist on July 8, 2022, for in search of Hong Kong buyers with no license.
In its current assertion, the SFC identified a number of duplicitous and deceptive claims and practices of the trade. As an illustration, the SFC famous that JPEX’s claims of being “licensed” by abroad regulators to function a crypto buying and selling platform are “not true.”
On its web site, JPEX claims that its working headquarters are in Dubai and that beneath the supervision of the Digital Belongings Regulatory Authority of Dubai (VARA), its buying and selling system “has stricter regulatory requirements and extra transparency and openness in cross-border transactions.” Nevertheless, JPEX just isn’t on VARA’s public record of licensed digital belongings service suppliers, the SFC famous.
The SFC additionally identified the very excessive returns supplied by JPEX for some merchandise. As an illustration, on the time of writing, JPEX supplied a 21% annual share yield for Ethereum (ETH), 20% for Bitcoin (BTC), and 19% for USD Coin (USDC). Furthermore, JPEX’s yield-generating merchandise like ‘Earn,’ and ‘Financial savings’ usually are not allowed beneath the Hong Kong crypto regulatory regime.
The regulator additionally mentioned JPEX has made deceptive and false claims about receiving funding from a Hong Kong-listed firm. The fee requested key opinion leaders to cease selling JPEX and making false claims about JPEX having utilized for a crypto license in Hong Kong.
Consumer complaints
Because the SFC famous in its assertion, a number of retail buyers have reported being unable to withdraw their belongings from JPEX or discovered their balances diminished or altered.
In response to the SCMP report, a consumer shared a screenshot in a Telegram group devoted to JPEX-related complaints. The screenshot depicted a withdrawal request for 1,000 Tether (USDT) tokens made on Saturday afternoon. Nevertheless, the withdrawal solely resulted in 25 USDT being acquired, with the remaining quantity being withheld by the trade beneath the label of “processing payment.”
The administrator of the Telegram group informed SCMP that he has acquired at the least 200 “severe” complaints involving over $10 million in crypto.
JPEX says it should “not collapse”
In response to the SFC assertion, JPEX accused the company of unfairly undermining the trade, since it’s within the “preparation part” and is but to submit its license software. The trade famous that the SFC’s assertion,
“…may be seen as exerting undue stress on our platform, reflecting a scarcity of dedication to the true implementation of Internet 3.0 insurance policies within the cryptocurrency trade. The unfair suppression by the SFC has led us to contemplate withdrawing our license software within the Hong Kong area and alter our future coverage improvement accordingly.”
JPEX added that the SFC ought to “bear full duty for undermining the prospects” of crypto improvement in Hong Kong.
On Sept. 14, attendees of Token2049 occasion in Singapore reported that JPEX staff had deserted their sales space on the second day of the occasion. This was even though the trade claimed on Wednesday that it was “actively taking part” within the occasion.
On Thursday, the trade adjusted the withdrawal payment for USDT in mild of the SFC’s feedback. JPEX mentioned that it has arrange a particular process pressure to find out future instructions and changes, and that it’ll enhance the withdrawal restrict within the coming days.
One consumer posted a screenshot on X depicting that the withdrawal restrict for USDT was set at 1,000 USDT whereas the withdrawal payment was set at 999 USDT.
On Sept. 15, JPEX suspended all features of the platform recreation foyer to adjust to regulatory norms. it added:
“We consider that the platform is not going to collapse and can proceed to function steadily.”
The submit Hong Kong police acquired over 80 complaints towards JPEX crypto trade appeared first on CryptoSlate.
