The Malta Financial Services Authority’s recent warning about an illegal cryptocurrency operation QuickX is related to a Ponzi scheme in which former EU commissioner John Dalli is involved in no small way.
The MFSA informed the public to steer well clear as “the entity is likely to be a scheme of dubious nature with a high risk of loss of money”. It made no mention of Dalli.
Yet The Shift has been working on the story for months. Questions were sent to the MFSA in January 2021, but the only reply received was that the Authority was looking into the case.
More than a year later, the MFSA has issued a warning when things had gone too far, and a number of people had suffered due to the regulator’s lack of action.
Research undertaken by The Shift shows that not only is this “a scheme of dubious nature”, but it also has all the hallmarks of an illegal Ponzi scheme, a form of fraud that involves paying ‘profits’ to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors until the scheme implodes.
John Dalli has been embroiled in a Ponzi scheme before and is presently facing bribery charges.
How it started – a bizarre press conference in India
In May 2018, an Indian regional news outlet’s breaking news item about some cryptocurrency project raised eyebrows over 5,000 kilometres away – in Malta.
The subject was a press conference in New Delhi organised by the Adhlakha brothers (Vaibhav and Kshitij) from India, the founders of…
