Cheques and Balances: Former Forex.com and Invast | Crypto Work Pro
Brendan Gunn has been sentenced within the Local Court of NSW for coping with more than AU$180,000 when it was cheap to suspect the funds had been proceeds of crime.
He acquired 12 months’ imprisonment, to be launched instantly upon getting into a $3,000 recognizance requiring good behaviour for 12 months. The most penalty for a abstract prosecution of this offence is 12 months.
Banks Flagged Suspicious Activity Repeatedly
From December 2018, Gunn served as a director of Mormarkets, which traded as Coinshype and acquired deposits from Australians for cryptocurrency and different purported investments. Between January 2019 and May 2020, 22 separate bank accounts had been opened in Mormarkets’ title throughout six financial establishments.
On a number of events, banks advised Gunn they’d acquired complaints that funds credited to Mormarkets accounts had been linked to fraud or suspicious exercise.
All accounts tied to the company had been finally closed by the banks.
When two of these accounts had been shut, Gunn acquired two bank cheques protecting investment quantities totalling AU$181,000. He then despatched the cheques to an affiliate.
He pleaded guilty in January 2026 to coping with money fairly suspected of being proceeds of crime, following a guilty plea Finance Magnates reported on on the time, which additionally detailed how he continued opening new accounts after banks flagged suspicious exercise.
ASIC Chair Sarah Court stated Gunn ignored clear warnings, together with buyer complaints made to Mormarkets’ banks, about money linked to suspected rip-off exercise, and that by persevering with to deal with these funds he helped transfer money taken from Australians.
A Career Rooted in CFD and Forex Brokerages
Gunn’s route into Mormarkets adopted a long run in Australia’s CFD and forex industry. He spent six years at GAIN Capital’s Forex.com model, serving as Director of Global Client Services for Asia-Pacific from 2006 to 2013.
In 2013, Japanese broker Invast Securities recruited him to determine and lead its Australian subsidiary, the place he secured the unit’s AFSL licence from ASIC and constructed a gross sales workforce of more than 25 people as CEO of Invast Financial Services till 2015. He was later briefly related to GMT Markets in 2018 earlier than becoming a member of Mormarkets.
ASIC stated the sentencing kinds half of a broader effort to disrupt scams, together with coordinating the elimination of more than 25,000 rip-off and phishing web sites since 2023.
Quarterly knowledge from ScamWatch and ReportCyber recorded 60,657 rip-off reviews and $248.3 million in losses within the first three months of 2026. The regulator’s different current actions embody a $35 million penalty in opposition to HSBC over rip-off safety failures and the cancellation of Capital Guard’s AFS licence over a faux bond sale.
This article was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.
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