No Luck for Luck-ow: new crimes, lawsuits and questions

Now that the “founders” house of cards is starting to collapse, we are being contacted by whistleblowers who have shared some sensitive insider information, especially some interesting data which has been subject to speculation for a long time.

According to these sources, which we deem to be very trustworthy, the approximately 530 BTC and 9800 ETH in investor funds embezzled by the founders were sold by Trado in mid November 2018 for approximately €4.7M in total proceeds, at prices of approximately €5,400/BTC and €180/ETH, respectively. The amount of crypto sold matches the amount of crypto Envion has demanded in two lawsuits filed against Trado and founders earlier in 2018. Strikingly, this sale happened within 24h after Envion was put into liquidation by Swiss authorities — certainly no coincidence. It is unclear what happened to the proceeds (€4.7M in FIAT) of Trado’s original 2018 investor token sale (see below).

Also, currently unclear is the source of an additional approximately 2400 ETH which were sold by Trado in 2021 (as per the current April 2021 injuction). How much additional FIAT was pocketed in this additional sale???

Let’s remember, there is a more than CHF 40M difference between what FINMA determined (based on witness testimony) to be the total FIAT proceeds of the ICO and the total FIAT value that ended up under the liquidator’s control. Up to approximately CHF 15M of this gap (February 2018 prices) can be explained by the “so far” known amount of crypto that is and was illegally held back by Trado and founders. Also, some exchange rate losses might have been incurred on Envion’s side between receipt of investor crypto and the conversion to FIAT. Some of the ICO investors received repayments due to failed KYC or CC refunds, contributing to the gap. However, with Trado still holding back crucial ICO and transactional data, it remains unclear whether these factors alone can really explain the remaining CHF >25M gap or whether additional amounts of crypto have somehow “disappeared”.
The latter would explain how founders and Trado — as per their statements in court, could have sold all of the disputed approximately 530 BTC and 9800 ETH in November 2018 and are still somehow be able to sell another approximately 2400 ETH in 2021 (i.e., a total of 530 BTC and 12200 ETH).
How much more of investors crypto is in the control of Trado or founders? This can only decisively be answered once Trado hands over the detailed ICO and transactional data to the liquidator, something they have disobediently refused for the past 3 years, for reasons only known by the founders.

All of this will now have to be determined by the liquidator. It’s also the subject of at least three lawsuits he is now pursuing against the Envion “founders” and Trado GmbH (as per his recent circular).

So what is the explanation of Trado and the founders for their behavior? In his deposition during a previous investor lawsuit (AZ 3 O 522/18 at the Regional Court Berlin) which he lost, Michael Luckow claimed that all of the original €4.7M have already been spent to repay founders for “a portion” (i.e. not all — according to Luckow, there is millions more) of Envion’s (not Trado’s) alleged “unpaid bills” which founders allegedly advanced, without any legal obligation and of course without providing any details, let alone accounting records. That is interesting — why would someone take the very real and severe legal risk of spending money they clearly don’t own, fulfilling the criminal offense of embezzlement, just to settle someone else’s bills?

In any case, it’s very difficult to believe that after the Envion project came to a screeching halt in early 2018, many millions in “costs” could have accrued thereafter, as per the founders’ “unpaid bills defense”. There was no business.
This is especially true as there was already a massive sale of “founder tokens” to unsuspecting investors in early 2018 within the lockup period, which according to Michael Luckow’s own public admission, was also meant to pay the same “unpaid bills”. It is quite obvious that the “unpaid bills” story is just another big lie, similar to the numerous incoherent stories Luckow unsuccessfully tried to use for his defense in recent court cases (which he lost), to the amusement of those present at the hearings. The Judges didn’t buy any of it and called him out on his lies.

In any case, the recent court judgement makes it very clear that there never was any justification for any unauthorized sale of assets by the founders or Trado, in any way. These assets, particularly the investor crypto designated to be invested into Envion tokens, always belonged to investors and/or Envion AG exclusively. It is also clear that Michael Luckow was precisely aware of his actions. In a public video (May 30, 2018) in which he awkwardly tried to defend the sale of “founder tokens”, he elaborated on why he could not have used “company tokens” in that token sale, as those would clearly “belong to Envion” and any sale of those tokens would therefore be illegal, despite being under founders’ factual control. With that awareness, one has to ask how he could possibly believe that the same would not apply to the investor funds, which clearly belong to Envion and it’s investors as well. He can’t.

It appears more than likely that in reality, founders simply pocketed the investor’s money and thought they could get away with it.

Another question which will need to be addressed in the liquidator’s lawsuits is whether founders/Trado can be held liable for the significant loss of value by knowingly selling the crypto at such low prices. As the recent judgement shows, they had no rights whatsoever to effect any depositions regarding these assets other than safeguarding and subsequently handing them over to the rightful owners in a timely manner.

New information and details are slowly but steadily completing the puzzle, offering explanations for the founder’s increasingly bizarre new narratives.
The narratives include, among other things, blaming the liquidator as being part of a complex, multinational conspiracy.
We are nearing the “game over” moment for the founders, whose outlandish “stories” may be barely plausible enough to impress some inexperienced investors but not the Judges and Prosecutors tasked with untangling this big web of total deception.

Stay tuned! We’ll release more information as soon as it’s available and verified.