Canadian authorities freeze assets as part of fraud investigation into Vanbex ICO

As part of the fraud investigation into blockchain service company Vanbex, a Canadian court has ordered authorities to freeze assets of the company’s two founders and seize their two Land Rovers, according to documents filed in Supreme Court of British Columbia. Co-founders Kevin Hobbs and Lisa Cheng are also prohibited from destroying or disposing of their property in Vancouver.

The court documents claim that Vanbex raised $30 million CAD (approximately $22 million) in an initial coin offering of the FUEL token in 2017. Potential investors were promised "the value of the FUEL token would increase dramatically” and that they’d be able to use the token in the smart contract system called Etherparty, which Vanbex claimed it had been building.

However, according to court documents, "they did not intend to use the invested funds to develop the products they were marketing." Instead, allegedly, their plan was to "misappropriate the corporately invested funds raised for their own personal benefit.” The ICO coincided with Hobbs and Cheng’s sudden growth of wealth.

As of today, there have been no criminal charges against Hobbs and Cheng, who both deny the accusations.