Crypto Firms Deemed Ponzi Schemes by US Are Thriving in Dubai (1)

On a scorching July day in Dubai, Sam Lee was inside a climate-controlled wine bar, sipping a glass of chilled red, looking untouchable. Near the beginning of the year, US authorities announced that they’d charged Lee in absentia with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. They alleged that, as the co-founder of a company called HyperVerse, he’d orchestrated a cryptocurrency scam that bilked investors around the world for almost $2 billion. HyperVerse had promised returns as high as 1% a day via cutting-edge blockchain-based strategies, but according to the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange ...