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A high-dollar gathering at President Donald Trump’s Virginia golf club has ignited a storm of ethical debates, blending crypto spectacle with accusations of constitutional overreach. The Thursday dinner, reserved for the top 220 holders of the head of state’s TRUMP meme coin, attracted billionaires, celebrities, and a cascade of legal threats, with critics calling it a gateway for foreign influence peddling. Entry to the event required holding TRUMP tokens, and reports indicate that attendees collectively spent as much as $394 million on the meme coin to sit at the president’s table. The gathering included crypto elites such as Tron founder Justin Sun, who is also an investor in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project. The businessman, who topped a publicly posted leaderboard with a $18.5 million stash, flaunted clips of himself at the event, even claiming he had received a Trump Golden Tourbillon watch from the president. This raised eyebrows, given that the SEC is investigating him over allegations of fraud, although the matter was paused abruptly in February. While former NBA star Lamar Odom made no secret of his presence at the Trump National Golf Club, most attendees remained anonymous, using nicknames on the leaderboard. Protestors reportedly lined up at the venue’s entrance, waving signs that read “Crypto corruption” and “America is not for sale.” Blockchain data shared by Bloomberg shows that more than half of the guests likely live outside the United States, with many buying their tokens from offshore crypto exchanges that claim to exclude American users. This detail alone raised concerns that foreign actors could exploit crypto to circumvent U.S. campaign finance laws. In response, 35 members of Congress have signed a letter calling for an investigation by the Department of Justice, citing possible violations of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. Meanwhile, Representative Maxine Waters has rolled out the “Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act,” which aims to bar officials from profiting from digital assets. Massachusetts senator and renowned crypto critic Elizabeth Warren didn’t mince words either, calling the dinner an “orgy of corruption” at a Thursday press conference . Fellow lawmaker Richard Blumenthal claimed it put a “for sale” sign on the White House. Both called for transparency on who attended the event and how access was monetized through the TRUMP token’s structure, with on-chain records indicating that the top 25 investors alone bought at least $111 million worth of the meme cryptocurrency. Despite claims from the White House that Trump attended in a personal capacity, reports indicate that the president delivered brief remarks behind a lectern bearing the seal of his office. He is said to have made no new crypto policy announcements, instead reiterating support for a national Bitcoin (BTC) reserve , before promptly jumping on his helicopter and flying out of the venue. The ensuing criticism doesn’t seem to have bothered the commander-in-chief, with the politician posting on his official Truth Social account, “The U.S.A. is DOMINATING in Crypto, Bitcoin, etc., and we are going to keep it that way!”

Global authorities just delivered a major hit to the darknet drug trade. A sprawling law enforcement crackdown, dubbed Operation RapTor , zeroed in on illicit fentanyl and opioid sales across online black markets, leading to the arrest of 270 individuals worldwide. The coordinated sting also pulled in more than $200 million in cash and digital assets This massive undertaking stretched across four continents, with investigators working together in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and South Korea. Officials announced they recovered over two metric tons of drugs, a haul that included a hefty 144 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced substances, alongside some 180 firearms. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team spearheaded this international initiative, teaming up closely with Europol and numerous law enforcement agencies throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. Officials are calling Operation RapTor the most successful JCODE effort yet, both in terms of the sheer amount of contraband seized and the number of suspects apprehended. A smart play in the operation involved using intelligence gathered from previous darknet marketplace shutdowns. Data from dismantled sites like Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia, and Kingdom Markets gave authorities crucial leads, helping them identify and track down darknet vendors and their customers across the globe. Word of successful prosecutions tied to Operation RapTor is already coming in from multiple U.S. federal districts. Down in California, two men were handed stiff prison sentences of 17 and 15 years for peddling fentanyl-laced pills to over 1,000 people through darknet sites. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also landed a key conviction, securing a guilty plea from Rui-Siang Lin. Lin was the operator of Incognito Market, a major darknet hub that, between 2020 and 2024, handled over $100 million in illicit drug sales. Related: Crypto Crackdown in South Korea: Upbit Suspended, Bithumb Investigated, Overseas Exchanges Face Action Over in Virginia, three darknet vendors got their due for pushing more than 13,000 drug shipments all over the U.S. They were caught distributing counterfeit Adderall which actually contained methamphetamine. When federal agents moved in, they seized $330,000 in cash, industrial pill press machines, and nearly 110,000 fake pills. In another significant case, Brian McDonald of California copped a 20-year sentence after admitting he used various darknet aliases to sling fentanyl and cocaine nationwide. Tragically, investigators linked at least one confirmed overdose death directly to his operation. The far-reaching success of Operation RapTor hinged on extensive cooperation between numerous agencies and international partners. In the U.S., crucial support came from the DEA, FBI, IRS-CI, HSI, USPIS, and the FDA OCI. On the international front, Europol and national police forces across ten countries were vital to the effort. Related: India’s Crypto Tax Crackdown vs. China’s Innovation Push—Is India Falling Behind? Adding another layer of pressure, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also slapped sanctions on Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad, identified as the operator of the Nemesis marketplace. Federal authorities reported that 26 different U.S. Attorneys’ Offices were involved in related prosecutions. They hailed Operation RapTor as a major leap forward in tackling sophisticated criminal outfits that try to hide their fentanyl and opioid sales under the veil of dark web anonymity. Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is for informational and educational purposes only. The article does not constitute financial advice or advice of any kind. Coin Edition is not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of the utilization of content, products, or services mentioned. Readers are advised to exercise caution before taking any action related to the company.

The US Department of Justice Seizes $24 Million in Cryptocurrency from Qakbot Malware Developers

U.S. DOJ files to seize $24M in crypto from Qakbot malware developer The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize over $24 million in cryptocurrency from Rustam Rafailevich Gallyamov, a Russian national accused of developing the Qakbot

A Danvers resident was convicted and sentenced for running an unregistered Bitcoin transmitting business that ignored federal anti-money laundering laws. A Danvers man was sentenced on Friday to six years in prison for running an unlicensed Bitcoin ( BTC ) money transmitting business that authorities say converted over $1 million in cash, including money linked to scammers and a drug dealer. Trung Nguyen — also known as “DCS420” — was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and was ordered to forfeit more than $1.5 million after being convicted in November 2024 of conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business and money laundering, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a Friday press release . Nguyen owned and operated National Vending between 2017 and 2020, a business that accepted cash from customers and sent them Bitcoin in return for a fee, but he failed to register it with FinCEN or comply with anti-money laundering rules required under federal law. Prosecutors claim Nguyen knowingly concealed his operation by presenting National Vending as a vending machine business and used encrypted messaging to make tracing transactions harder. “He [Nguyen] used encrypted messaging apps to communicate with customers, using technologies that made it more difficult to trace Bitcoin transactions and breaking cash deposits of more than $10,000 into smaller cash deposits over consecutive days or at different branches of the same bank.” U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts Prosecutors say Nguyen accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from individuals, including a methamphetamine dealer and victims of romance scams. In early May, Alex Mashinsky, founder of the bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius Network, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in the company’s collapse, which cost users billions of dollars. Prosecutors said Mashinsky defrauded thousands of people, many of whom lost their life savings, while stealing more than $48 million from the firm. He pleaded guilty to securities and commodities fraud.