Ishan Wahi, the former chief product officer at Coinbase Global Inc, has admitted to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a case that US prosecutors have called the first cryptocurrency-related insider trading case.
Ex-Coinbase manager pleads guilty in insider trading case https://t.co/i6fG3c3wHc pic.twitter.com/zKfjqnNpzT
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 7, 2023
According to a Reuters story, prosecutors claimed that Wahi disclosed private information to his brother Nikhil and his friend Sameer Ramani about impending announcements of new digital assets that Coinbase would allow users to trade. The announcement subsequently caused asset values to rise, allowing Nikhil and Sameer Raman to generate illicit gains of at least $1.5 million. Nikhil Wahi and Ramani were accused of using Ethereum (ETH) network wallets to acquire digital assets and trade ahead of Coinbase’s announcements.
“I knew that Sameer Ramani and Nikhil Wahi would use that information to make business decisions,” Ishan Wahi admitted during a hearing Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. “It was a mistake to misappropriate and spread ownership of Coinbase,” added.
As part of his plea bargain, Ishan Wahi has agreed to be sentenced to between 36 and 47 months in prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 10. His brother Nikhil Wahi has already pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months in prison, while Ramani remains at large. Coinbase reportedly communicated to the prosecution the results of an internal investigation into the operations.
On Jan. 10, Cointelegraph reported that Ishan Wahi’s brother, Nikhil Wahi, had been sentenced to 10 months in prison on wire fraud conspiracy charges. Nikhil Wahi pleaded guilty in September to starting operations based on confidential information obtained from his brother, Ishan Wahi.
In the case of Nikhil Wahi, US prosecutors proposed a prison sentence of between 10 and 16 months for having benefited from almost USD 900,000 through his illicit activities. However, her defense attorneys proposed an alternative result, arguing that her motivation for committing the crime was to pay her parents back for her university studies and that she had no criminal record.
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