International attorney Dr. Jonathan Levy announced in an email he sent to CoinReport a global class action lawsuit alleging unlicensed banking, unfair business competition and fraudulent practices by cryptocurrency operators.

The lawsuit is Christopher Strunk vs. Satoshi Nakamoto et al. Strunk, a New York-based consumer advocate, alleges his private banking venture, which sought a New York license, was crippled by bitcoin operators providing similar services with no real capital, no regulation and no license.

Dr. Levy said in the email, “It is my well-founded belief that the profits in Bitcoin, Ethereum and all the other digital coin based ventures are largely based in fraud, pump and dump tactics, theft and securities violations. The world’s largest holder of Bitcoins, worth more than $4 billion is of course the inventor and promoter. And that is a conservative estimate since we have no way of knowing how many proxy accounts the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto gang controls.”

It is a rule of economics, says Dr. Levy’s email, that for every winner, there must be an equal number of losers, and in this case, there are lots of victims. The winners, says the email, are the promoters of cryptocurrencies, token makers or so-called miners, High Yield Investment Programs, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and all the varied bitcoin-assisted scams and fraud. Mentioning the Fortune Magazine as the source, Dr. Levy says even when investors have broken the bank on bitcoin and ethereum, their accounts have been inexplicably hacked and drained.

Dr. Levy goes on to mention recent bitcoin news, including JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon claiming the [bitcoin] fraud is so bad that “people will die!”, the SEC issuing a sweeping warning, the Chinese government outlawing ICOs and Fortune, Forbes and The Economist exposing what gives the impression of a massive fraud bigger than the Madoff and Stanford Ponzi schemes combined.

The lawsuit may affect those who have been a victim or investor in bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies or blockchain and fintech fraud utilizing cryptocurrencies, says the email, adding losses may be actual or lost profits. Dr. Levy advises those who have invested in such ventures may be a victim and not know it.

Dr. Levy is licensed and admitted to practice law in the US, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. He is best known for his class action lawsuits against the UBS Bank and the Vatican Bank and for representing high profile clients like the former deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia and the former president of Taiwan. Dr. Levy is also an adjunct professor of international law and political science.

Image credit – Sirius, a.k.a. Martti Malmi (CC BY 3.0)