The defendant, HK, was unanimously found not guilty after a six-week trial at Preston Crown Court. Following a fraud carried out in Blackpool in which a programming ‘glitch’ was exploited to steal 2,390 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies totalling $37m Australian dollars from a digital currency website, the prosecution alleged that HK had helped to arrange the liquidation of those assets. HK was a trader based in Dubai who had converted the Bitcoin received into cash, gold bars and property.
With the assistance of expert evidence and forensic examination of the voluminous and complex underlying financial material, Tom Wainwright and Shina Animashaun were able to demonstrate to the jury that HK’s trading and business activity were not out of the ordinary, and he had no cause to know or suspect that the assets he was dealing with derived from criminal activity. HK was the only defendant to be acquitted following this complicated and intricate trial.
Tom and Shina were instructed by Anna Sidgwick of Stuart Miller Solicitors.
