STRING OF CHARGES | 

Co Down businessman to stand trial accused of multimillion-pound international Bitcoin fraud

Jawad Yaqub faces a string of charges including one of falsely claiming he had a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast

Paul Higgins

Yesterday at 14:00

A Co Down businessman was ordered today to stand trial accused of a multimillion-pound international Bitcoin cryptocurrency fraud.

Holywood-based company director Jawad Yaqub (45) is accused of frauds against organisations in the US and Australia.

The string of charges also include one of falsely claiming he had a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast.

Appearing at Newtownards Magistrates’ Court, Yaqub confirmed he understood the 25 charges against him and that he did not object to the case being returned to the Crown Court for trial.

The charges cover a time span between February 2016 and October 2018.

Yaqub, from Ben Vista Park in Holywood, faces 19 charges of converting criminal property and four counts of fraud by false representation.

He faces single charges of fraudulent training and theft.

While the alleged facts surrounding the charges have not been opened in court, the charge sheets reveal that, according to the Crown’s case, Yaqub was a director in Razormind Limited but carried on his business “for a fraudulent purpose”.

It is alleged the fraudulent purpose was to “defraud participants in the DeOS crowdsale”.

The fraud-by-false-representation charges allege that Yaqub claimed Razormind Limited “is a world-leading information technology services company providing a wide range of services to a substantial and diversified client base including corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals”.

Yaqub is alleged to have made false representations to a list of firms and organisations including Bank Of America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Chubb, Deutsche Lufthansa, Farmers Mutual Group, Health Partners, Telefonica O2 and Texas Public Schools.