Month: January 2025

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today to stop Global Business Travel Group Inc. (Amex GBT), the largest business travel management company in the world, from acquiring its rival, CWT Holdings LLC (CWT), the third-largest business travel management company in the world. The complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the proposed $570 million transaction — Amex GBT’s fifth acquisition of another travel management company since 2018 — would harm competition for business travel management services to U.S. global and multinational businesses.

“American businesses rely on travel management companies to connect employees, control travel costs, make travel booking and expense management easier, and ensure their employees’ safety during travel,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “This acquisition is the latest in a series of acquisitions by Amex GBT that will further consolidate an already consolidated market with only a handful of competitive options capable of serving customers with the most need for travel management services. American businesses will face the consequences, seeing higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices.”

As alleged in the complaint, Amex GBT and CWT anticipated that the proposed acquisition would harm competition and benefit the merged firm at the expense of its customers. The complaint alleges that senior Amex GBT executives viewed the acquisition as an opportunity for “consolidation” of the market for business travel management services for global and multinational customers and a respite from its recent customer losses to CWT. The complaint further alleges that Amex GBT recognized that its valuation of the proposed acquisition should reflect the financial benefit of avoiding future loss business to CWT. For example, its CEO wrote to its president that the company “need[ed] to consider how much we might lose to [CWT] each year in a [business as usual] scenario.” During deal negotiations, CWT’s owners likewise believed Amex GBT should pay a higher price for CWT in recognition of the increased revenues Amex GBT would enjoy post-merger due to the reduction in “price pressure” from “removing [a] big competitor.”

The complaint alleges that the combination of Amex GBT and CWT would combine two of the three largest players in business travel management services for global and multinational companies located in the United States, giving the combined firm a significant share in a market that CWT has acknowledged is “oligopolistic.” Few other companies can effectively provide travel management services to global and multinational companies located in the United States at the scale of Amex GBT and CWT.

Today, Amex GBT and CWT compete fiercely to provide travel management services for large businesses and those with complex travel needs. CWT had recently begun pursuing new and innovative strategies to improve service and reduce prices in order to win over business from Amex GBT. As a result, Amex GBT recently lost several significant bid opportunities for large business customers to CWT. If Amex GBT is permitted to acquire CWT, this intense competition would be lost, risking higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices — costs that will be borne by the many businesses and employees for whom these services are critical to their productivity and operations.

Amex GBT is a publicly traded Delaware corporation with its principal executive office located in New York City and its operational headquarters located in London. In 2023, Amex GBT managed a total transaction value of approximately $28.2 billion, earning revenues of $2.29 billion.

CWT is a privately held company headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. In 2023, CWT managed a total transaction volume of approximately $14 billion, earning revenues of about $850 million.

Source: United States Department of Justice 2

An Oklahoma man pleaded guilty yesterday for his role in a cryptocurrency investment fraud conspiracy.

According to court documents, Travis Ford, 35, of Glenpool, was the CEO, co-founder, and head trader of Wolf Capital Crypto Trading LLC (Wolf Capital), a purported cryptocurrency investment firm. From January 2023 through August 2023, Ford solicited investments through Wolf Capital’s website and other social media and internet-based promotion activities. Ford held himself out as a sophisticated trader able to deliver high returns of 1-2% per day (approximately 547% per year). Ford admitted that he did not believe those promised investment returns were possible to achieve consistently. Ford made such false promises to induce members of the public to invest money in the company. Ford misappropriated and diverted investor funds to benefit himself and his co-conspirators, to the financial detriment of investors. In total, Wolf Capital raised $9.4 million from approximately 2,800 investors through fraudulent conduct.

Ford pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, for which he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Wible, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Criminal Investigation Group made the announcement.

The USPIS is investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys John J. Liolos and Matt Kahn of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case. 

Source: United States Department of Justice 2

A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia returned an indictment on Jan. 7 charging three Russian nationals for their involvement in operating the cryptocurrency mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io. Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik were arrested on Dec. 1, 2024, roughly a year after Sinbad.io’s online infrastructure was seized as part of a coordinated law enforcement action among the Netherlands’ Financial Intelligence and Investigative Service, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI. The third defendant, Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov, remains at large.

“According to the indictment, the defendants operated cryptocurrency ‘mixers’ that served as safe havens for laundering criminally derived funds, including the proceeds of ransomware and wire fraud,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent S. Wible, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “By allegedly operating these mixers, the defendants made it easier for state-sponsored hacking groups and other cybercriminals to profit from offenses that jeopardized both public safety and national security. The indictment and arrests announced today, which follow the earlier takedown of the defendants’ criminal infrastructure, yet again demonstrate the value of our international partnerships in countering the global threat from cybercrime.”

“Blender.io and Sinbad.io were allegedly used by criminals across the world to launder funds stolen from victims of ransomware, virtual currency thefts, and other crimes,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia. “This indictment demonstrates our continued commitment to dismantling infrastructure used by cybercriminals to steal from Americans and hide their ill-gotten gains.”

“Last year, with the assistance of our international partners, we successfully dismantled Sinbad.io,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Sean Burke of the FBI Atlanta Field Office. “However, we did not rest with this initial success. We maintained our focus on identifying the individuals responsible for its development and ensuring their accountability. These indictments serve as a testament to the power of international cooperation.”

According to court documents and publicly available information, Blender.io and Sinbad.io were cryptocurrency mixers that allowed their users, for a fee, to send cryptocurrency to designated recipients in a manner designed to hide the source of the cryptocurrency. Blender.io and Sinbad.io were available for use by the public via the internet and used by criminals looking to distance themselves from the fact that their funds came from cryptocurrency thefts, ransomware attacks, and other crimes.

Blender.io operated from approximately 2018 to 2022. The service was advertised on a popular internet forum as having a “No Logs Policy” and deleting any traces of user transactions. Additionally, in the advertisement, Blender was described as not requiring users to sign up, register, or “provide any kind of detail except the receiving address!” The advertisement asserted that, “[a]s there are no personal details asked for, there’s no way your identity is compromised, or can be linked back to, because as far as blender.io goes they don’t know who you are.” After Blender.io shut down, Sinbad.io began operating a few months later. Like Blender.io, Sinbad.io provided users with Bitcoin concealment services. And, on November 27, 2023, Sinbad.io was taken down through law enforcement action.

Both Blender.io and Sinbad.io have been sanctioned by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). On May 6, 2022, OFAC sanctioned Blender.io, citing its use by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to launder stolen virtual currency. OFAC’s public sanctions announcement also explained that Blender.io laundered funds for multiple ransomware groups. On Nov. 29, 2023, OFAC sanctioned Sinbad.io, publicly citing its use by a DPRK state-sponsored hacking group and cybercriminals to obfuscate transactions linked to other criminal offenses.

Ostapenko, 55, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Oleynik, 44, and Tarasov, 32, are both charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the money laundering conspiracy count and five years in prison for each unlicensed money transmitting business count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Netherlands’ Public Prosecution Service and Fiscal Information and Investigative Service made significant contributions to the case, including to the disruption of the Sinbad mixer, and provided other valuable assistance. Significant support was also provided by the Australian Federal Police and Attorney-General’s Department, and Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI is investigating the case.

Trial Attorney Ethan Cantor of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, who is a member of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Samir Kaushal for the Northern District of Georgia are prosecuting the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maxwell Coll for the Central District of California provided significant assistance.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice 2

The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today to stop Global Business Travel Group Inc. (Amex GBT), the largest business travel management company in the world, from acquiring its rival, CWT Holdings LLC (CWT), the third-largest business travel management company in the world. The complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the proposed $570 million transaction — Amex GBT’s fifth acquisition of another travel management company since 2018 — would harm competition for business travel management services to U.S. global and multinational businesses.

“American businesses rely on travel management companies to connect employees, control travel costs, make travel booking and expense management easier, and ensure their employees’ safety during travel,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “This acquisition is the latest in a series of acquisitions by Amex GBT that will further consolidate an already consolidated market with only a handful of competitive options capable of serving customers with the most need for travel management services. American businesses will face the consequences, seeing higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices.”

As alleged in the complaint, Amex GBT and CWT anticipated that the proposed acquisition would harm competition and benefit the merged firm at the expense of its customers. The complaint alleges that senior Amex GBT executives viewed the acquisition as an opportunity for “consolidation” of the market for business travel management services for global and multinational customers and a respite from its recent customer losses to CWT. The complaint further alleges that Amex GBT recognized that its valuation of the proposed acquisition should reflect the financial benefit of avoiding future loss business to CWT. For example, its CEO wrote to its president that the company “need[ed] to consider how much we might lose to [CWT] each year in a [business as usual] scenario.” During deal negotiations, CWT’s owners likewise believed Amex GBT should pay a higher price for CWT in recognition of the increased revenues Amex GBT would enjoy post-merger due to the reduction in “price pressure” from “removing [a] big competitor.”

The complaint alleges that the combination of Amex GBT and CWT would combine two of the three largest players in business travel management services for global and multinational companies located in the United States, giving the combined firm a significant share in a market that CWT has acknowledged is “oligopolistic.” Few other companies can effectively provide travel management services to global and multinational companies located in the United States at the scale of Amex GBT and CWT.

Today, Amex GBT and CWT compete fiercely to provide travel management services for large businesses and those with complex travel needs. CWT had recently begun pursuing new and innovative strategies to improve service and reduce prices in order to win over business from Amex GBT. As a result, Amex GBT recently lost several significant bid opportunities for large business customers to CWT. If Amex GBT is permitted to acquire CWT, this intense competition would be lost, risking higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices — costs that will be borne by the many businesses and employees for whom these services are critical to their productivity and operations.

Amex GBT is a publicly traded Delaware corporation with its principal executive office located in New York City and its operational headquarters located in London. In 2023, Amex GBT managed a total transaction value of approximately $28.2 billion, earning revenues of $2.29 billion.

CWT is a privately held company headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. In 2023, CWT managed a total transaction volume of approximately $14 billion, earning revenues of about $850 million.