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Bankera Founders Accused of Misusing ICO Funds for Luxury Purchases and Secret Bank Acquisition
Bankera Founders Accused of Misusing ICO Funds for Luxury Purchases and Secret Bank Acquisition
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The founders of Lithuanian crypto fintech Bankera face explosive allegations of diverting nearly half their €100 million ICO proceeds to secretly acquire Pacific Private Bank in Vanuatu. Vytautas Karalevičius and his co-founders allegedly used this backdoor to funnel unsecured loans to shadow companies they controlled—funds meant for blockchain banking development instead bankrolled luxury expenditures.
The scheme unraveled through an OCCRP investigation revealing how the 2018 token sale capital was systematically misappropriated. Rather than building promised infrastructure, the founders allegedly treated investor funds as a personal slush fund—a cautionary tale for crypto’s wild west era.
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