Brendan Gunn has been sentenced within the Native Court docket of NSW for coping with greater than AU$180,000 when it was cheap to suspect the funds have been proceeds of crime.
He obtained 12 months’ imprisonment, to be launched instantly upon coming into a $3,000 recognizance requiring good behaviour for 12 months. The utmost penalty for a abstract prosecution of this offence is 12 months.
Banks Flagged Suspicious Exercise Repeatedly
From December 2018, Gunn served as a director of Mormarkets, which traded as Coinshype and obtained deposits from Australians for cryptocurrency and different purported investments. Between January 2019 and Might 2020, 22 separate financial institution accounts have been opened in Mormarkets’ identify throughout six monetary establishments.
On a number of events, banks informed Gunn they’d obtained complaints that funds credited to Mormarkets accounts have been linked to fraud or suspicious exercise.
All accounts tied to the corporate have been ultimately closed by the banks.
When two of these accounts have been shut, Gunn obtained two financial institution cheques masking funding quantities totalling AU$181,000. He then despatched the cheques to an affiliate.
He pleaded responsible in January 2026 to coping with cash moderately suspected of being proceeds of crime, following a responsible 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 docket mentioned Gunn ignored clear warnings, together with buyer complaints made to Mormarkets’ banks, about cash linked to suspected rip-off exercise, and that by persevering with to take care of these funds he helped transfer cash taken from Australians.
A Profession Rooted in CFD and Foreign exchange Brokerages
Gunn’s route into Mormarkets adopted a future in Australia’s CFD and foreign exchange business. He spent six years at GAIN Capital’s Foreign exchange.com model, serving as Director of World Shopper Providers for Asia-Pacific from 2006 to 2013.
In 2013, Japanese dealer 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 crew of greater than 25 individuals as CEO of Invast Monetary Providers till 2015. He was later briefly related to GMT Markets in 2018 earlier than becoming a member of Mormarkets.
ASIC mentioned the sentencing types a part of a broader effort to disrupt scams, together with coordinating the elimination of greater than 25,000 rip-off and phishing web sites since 2023.
Quarterly information from ScamWatch and ReportCyber recorded 60,657 rip-off stories and $248.3 million in losses within the first three months of 2026. The regulator’s different latest actions embody a $35 million penalty towards HSBC over rip-off safety failures and the cancellation of Capital Guard’s AFS licence over a faux bond sale.
This text was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.
Source link
