- Nexo co-founder comes out to deny allegations by the Bulgarian government.
- Nexo is still under the Bulgarian authorities’ radar.
- The co-founder of the crypto lender claims it is an attempt by opposing political parties.
Nexo became a hot topic in Bulgaria when it was reported to have been under investigation by the Bulgaria authorities, with the leading political parties in the country using it as a weapon against each other’s reputation, with claims from a former prime minister of the country that Nexo was involved in giving out money to the opposing party.
The co-founder of Nexo has now come out to say the accusations by the Bulgarian authorities were false, with no proof that the company was indeed involved in the money laundering and funding of terrorism it was being accused of.
The company’s co-founder, Antoni Trenchev, assumes that he was one of the four people in Nexo accused of violating anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regulations in January.
Nexo escaped the bankruptcy that would have seen its collapse when it was exposed to the three arrows capital and FTX’s collapse. However, with the accusations from the Bulgarian authorities, the crypto lending company is again in the news for less than pleasant reasons, as their office in the capital of Bulgaria was raided by 300 officers last month.
Asides from the money laundering and funding of terrorism claims, Nexo was also hit with tax violations, the establishment of an organized crime group, and unlicensed banking claims, all of which the Co-founder of the platform claims will continue to unfold as a target toward them for their involvement in certain political parties.
While the raid was ongoing, Nexo immediately put out a statement on Twitter refuting the claims by saying they had turned down a lot of business to avoid any compromise in regards to their anti-money-laundering solid and know-your-customer regulations.
The Bulgarian authorities announced that two of the four suspects in the laundering case had been detained while they were in search of the other two.
Another pointer to Antoni’s claims is his history of being a former National Assembly member in Bulgaria who went on to create a crypto lending company with the other co-founders.
The crypto lending company, while unscathed by the swarm of crypto lending bankruptcies, they were unable to avoid getting in trouble in the United States as back in December 2022, Nexo had to cut off their services in eight states in the U.S with plans to withdraw from the U.S. market altogether.
Nexo claimed that the regulators in the United States had become difficult to work with in the wake of the FTX collapse, which wasn’t unfounded due to the chaos and destruction it caused. Still, their resolve made the environment an impossible one to operate in.
Conclusion:
Nexo is not the first crypto exchange getting dragged into politics as one of the significant reasons why regulators getting challenged to work within the U.S can be attributed to the ties the former CEO of FTX had with political campaigns, which led him to donate to them, and eventually caused huge controversies after the company went bankrupt after it was revealed customer funds were bankrolling his extravagant lifestyle.
Nexo being accused of money laundering is another pointer in the same direction.
