🧵1/Ω A few things about @crossriverbank, a tiny #a16z funded lender that originated more #PPP loans for "small businesses" than anyone besides Chase, BofA, and Wells Fargo, mostly for people who were not their customers.

Also @coinbase's preferred bank.
techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/cro… ImageImage
🧵2/Ω They paid @McKinsey a bunch of money to tell the world that "while most banks originated PPP loans to their own customers, Cross River leads in originations to new customers"
mckinsey.com/industries/fin…
🧵3/Ω Unlike other banks that blew up on "fund banking" recently (*cough* $SBNY $SIVB *cough*) @crossriverbank does their "fund banking" differently:

They package all the loans and sell them to weird "fintech" companies like @Upstart. @mikulaja Image
🧵4/Ω
100,000 #PPP / covid relief loans, mostly to new customers, processed by a super tiny bank @crossriverbank

Basically claiming to have the most incredibly skilled and fastest fraud prevention team at any bank on the planet by orders of magnitude 🚩
nytimes.com/2020/06/23/bus…
🧵5/Ω
Much like criminal mastermind Alan Lane (CEO of $SI) and noted theologian #ScottShay (president of $SBNY), the CEO is deeply religious (and wants you to know it).

They also employ a lot of Haredim, a historically undereducated population in Israel.
en.globes.co.il/en/article-The… Image
🧵6/Ω
It is interesting to note that #BrockPierce, founder of #Tether and part owner of one of the most infamous pedophile rings in Hollywood history (#DigitalEntertainmentNetwork), also employs a team of Haredim.
jpost.com/business-and-i…
🧵7/Ω
Brock Pierce joined the board of $SRAX / #SocialRealty in 2021.
fintel.io/doc/sec-srax-i… Image
🧵8/Ω
$SRAX got its #PPP loans from... wait for it...
@crossriverbank. Image
🧵9/Ω
$SRAX also was just apparently de-listed from the @Nasdaq for failure to comply with filing requirements last week. 🚩
sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archiv… Image
🧵10/Ω
@crossriverbank is also now the main banking partner for @circle of recently de-pegged stablecoin $USDC fame now that their other banks have all blown up.

(@circle banked with 3 out of 4 blown up banks - $SBNY, $SI, and $SIVB, which is amazing).
finance.yahoo.com/news/cross-riv…
🧵11/Ω
Here's another example of #CrossRiverBank's extensive due diligence on those 100,000 #PPP covid loans: #SoberServicesLLC, which stopped existing in 2018, was given a $466,847 loan by @crossriverbank in March 2021. (h/t @BP77California)
ImageImage
Was pointed out by @MikeBurgersburg that @Upstart might just be doing the BaaS front end and @crossriverbank is the original bank, but I have been told by others that #CrossRiverBank ALSO sells loans to @Upstart. Deserves a closer look.

Either way CRB loans arrangement is weird
🧵12/Ω
So the story of @crossriverbank has a lot of drama. It's got #BrockPierce for the pedo connection, #Tether for some Putin, what appears to be massive #PPP / covid relief fraud for the $ part...

Why not sprinkle in a little Ukraine for good measure?
🧵13/Ω
If anyone's looking for stuff to dig through, here's @propublica's list of all #PPP loans originated by @crossriverbank.

This thread has no doubt just scratched the surface.
projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/ba…
🧵14/Ω
If you wonder why a tiny bank like @crossriverbank might shovel fraudulent #PPP / covid relief loans out, maybe it's because they collected ~$233 million in fees according to NYT

ps the fact that NYT took this at face value is one of many reasons it's a national disgrace. Image
🧵15/Ω
#CrossRiverBank has biz lines other than crypto. e.g. in 2022 they loaned $105mm to a luxury condo by shady developers #Bushburg and #Moinian deep in the lowest income neighborhood in all of NYC.

"deal makes no sense" - NY RE reporters.

if economy turns loan will fail. ImageImage
🧵16/Ω
CrossRiver is also one of the only banks besides @silvergatebank / $SI (R.I.P.) to make loans and take crypto as collateral.

They also marketed $WAVES / $USDN, a now collapsed fraud, to customers.

any Waves bag holders need someone to sue?
crossriver.com/weekly-crypto-… ImageImage
🧵17/Ω
@AmerBanker: A bank originating #PPP loan fraud, doing fraudulent round robin lending with $UPST, banking crypto, and lending out actual $ for crypto collateral is "best place to work" 5 yrs in a row.

Remind you of an "innovative" energy company?

"Let us build." ImageImage
🧵18/Ω
So what does the @coinbase / Cross River relationship look like? Well.

Apparently the company that shoveled out fraudulent #PPP loans is in the "compliance" business.

Does @crossriverbank still do compliance for $COIN? Because if so lol. ImageImage
🧵19/Ω
By number of #PPP loans @crossriverbank was #4 in the country. But by dollar figure?

🥈 2nd 🥈

As an aside this brochure seems to be marketed at "woke" which is interesting bc their Haredi employees are among the least "woke" people on the planet
crossriver.com/sites/default/… Image
🧵20/Ω
Apparently @KabbageInc (R.I.P.) did some actual customer facing work w/r/t the enormous number of fraudulent loan applications @crossriverbank processed.

#Kabbage got bought by #AmEx but is now under federal investigation & bankrupt

Sounds like that #Frank "fintech" scam Image
🧵21/Ω
Here's some money quotes about @crossriverbank from Forbes courtesy @finhstamsterdam who knows way more about banks and fintech than I do

Reminds me of criminal mastermind Alan Lane's quote about services $SI (RIP) provided. $SI wasn't a bank it was a "liquidity provider" ImageImageImageImage
🧵22/Ω
The @crossriverbank reviews on @Glassdoor are pretty good actually... though I have to say the bad ones are pretty revealing.

Words you see a lot:

➤ "disorganized" (even in good reviews!)
➤ "incompetent"
➤ "nepotism" (remember how that worked out for $SI?) ImageImageImageImage
🧵23/Ω
Some more reviews of #CrossRiverBank on @Glassdoor I found interesting.

Remember how the c-suite at $SI was family of the CEO? Seems similar.

Also disorganized tech startups are a thing but this isn't a startup. It's a bank. "Move fast, break things" is not OK. ImageImageImageImage
🧵24/Ω
@crossriverbank has been in some hot water in the pre-Jurassic era of a few years ago with not just one but two government agencies that protect consumers: the #FDIC and the #CFPB. (h/t @RasooliSheida, @finhstamsterdam)
fdic.gov/news/press-rel…
files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cf… ImageImageImage
🧵24/Ω
Perhaps now is a good time to mention that a recent study found that 5-14% of all emergency covid #PPP relief funds ended up being "invested" in crypto, particularly among the less educated.

Discuss.
🧵25/Ω
Or that #CrossRiverBank was chosen as one of the banks that will test @federalreserve's new #FedNOW system

That's right folks, you heard it hear first.

They're gonna plug a crypto bank straight into the fed (maybe bc it was so good at #PPP loans)
🧵26/Ω
Really helps to hire the right people with the right political connections sometimes.
🧵27/Ω
So @crossriverbank has connections to #PPP, famous pedos, ultra-orthodox Israelis, and #Tether.

But tbh it's the last two that really mystify me. Because why are a bunch of ultra orthodox hanging around a guy whose co. laundered money for #Hamas?
🧵25/Ω
Perhaps now is a good time to mention that a recent study found that 5-14% of all emergency covid #PPP relief funds ended up being "invested" in crypto, particularly among the less educated.

Discuss.
🧵26/Ω
Or that #CrossRiverBank was chosen as one of the banks that will test @federalreserve's new #FedNOW system

That's right folks, you heard it hear first.

They're gonna plug a crypto bank straight into the fed (maybe bc it was so good at #PPP loans)
🧵27/Ω
Really helps to hire the right people with the right political connections sometimes, especially if they're ready for their turn at the trough.
🧵28/Ω
So @crossriverbank has connections to #PPP, famous pedos, ultra-orthodox Israelis, and #Tether.

But tbh it's the last two that really mystify me. Because why are a bunch of ultra orthodox hanging around a guy whose co. laundered money for #Hamas?
🧵29/Ω
tfw you wasted time researching & screenshooting examples that @crossriverbank's #PPP covid lending was sus af to tweet when you could have just checked the nj biz news and found out #CrossRiverBank is currently under investigation for money crimes.
njbiz.com/cross-river-ba… ImageImageImageImage
@crossriverbank 🧵30/Ω
So @coinbase / @circle / $USDC's bank is under investigation for money crimes (probably because it committed money crimes).

No wonder $COIN is looking for a new office.

Heard Uzbekistan is nice. Has lots of sun and no extradition treaties.
coindesk.com/business/2023/…
🧵31/Ω
"@crossriverbank's less hands-on approach ... may have led it to approve riskier loans... U. of Texas graph shows ~20%¹ of CRB's loans had at least 1 suspicious indicator."

Next highest? 10%

¹ ~$2.6 billion in #PPP $ 😱 (h/t @finhstamsterdam)
🧵32/Ω
😱WOW😱 missed this part about @crossriverbank: The US Government owes Cross River $300 million (⁉️) in loan forgiveness... that it's not willing to forgive.

No wonder so many CRB #PPP loans' status is "Not Disclosed" instead of "forgiven": they have a $300m hole.

#ngmi ImageImageImageImage
🧵33/Ω
I did a whole other thread about the Congressional report on how fintechs (including @crossriverbank) had facilitated fraudulent #PPP / covid relief loans and are now under investigation.
🧵34/Ω
Then I did a whole *other* thread going through @crossriverbank's holding company's annual income statements filed with the state of New Jersey.
🧵35/Ω
One thing that's weird here is that some of these job listings come up as being for something called #CrossTheRiver but logo and address are #CrossRiverBank.
Image

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More from @Cryptadamist

Oct 30
is saylor trying to bail out the entire bitcoin market? $MSTR @crypto1nfern0
i find it at least curious that this announcement of such a massive capital raise came just a few days after we got confirmation that the Treasury Dept is considering freezing Tether's assets and the DOJ is investigating them...
3/ it's probably nothing but... $42 billion is a kind of oddly specific number for Saylor Moon to throw out
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1/ anyone heard of #ChipperCash, an #FTX funded african fintech that had at one point almost $700 million deposited at Silicon Valley Bank? the funds were split up across like 10 accounts so the name didn't come up when $SVB's top depositors were a hot topic... Image
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2/ Funds were in accounts labeled as "Deciens Chipper Cash SPV" 1-N. based on the total amount roughly matching the below tweet it seems like those funds somehow came from #Nigeria's government?
3/ Which in turn makes me wonder if this is stolen Nigerian oil money being laundered through SVB @mikulaja have you heard of this apparently kind of large fintech company?

cc @ParrotCapital @SilvermanJacob @RogueCfpb @thebankzhar
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🧵1/Ω
A thread about the recent connection of what WSJ calls “the shadow dollar that’s fueling the financial underworld” and the Trump campaign (basically a 🧵 version of my pinned tweet).

Ω👇Ω
🧵2/Ω
Some background: there’s a NYC based financial firm called Cantor Fitzgerald whose CEO is a man named Howard Lutnick. Lutnick became somewhat infamous in the aftermath of 9/11 for cutting off payments to the many Cantor employees who died in the World Trade Center. Image
🧵3/Ω
Lutnick has two roles that matter for the purposes of this 🧵. The first is he was recently made the co-chair of the Trump transition team, meaning if Trump wins Lutnick will be choosing who will run things like the Dept. of Justice, Defense, etc.
thehill.com/homenews/campa…
Read 30 tweets
Sep 26
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Eric Adams minorly mega-thread bc I broke the other one:
🧵2/Ω
I have videos of these screenshots but the frame rate is broken and i'm too lazy to correct it right now, but Uzbekistan's #Agrobank hired Brock Pierce's favorite lobbyist and went to meet Ted Cruz and went to the White House:
🧵3/Ω
DOJ lobbyist registration for Uzbekistan's #Agrobank hiring Brock Pierce's favorite lobbyist.
Read 36 tweets
Sep 10
Ω❓Ω
maybe nothing but interesting the total value of Tether's repo assets for 2023-Q4 is only 2% less than the collateralized assets listed on #CantorFitzgerald's 2023 filing

@Bitfinexed @myuzumaki_com @OccamiCrypto @tysgillies @BenFoldy @crypto1nfern0
sec.gov/Archives/edgar…

Image
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@Bitfinexed @myuzumaki_com @OccamiCrypto @tysgillies @BenFoldy @crypto1nfern0 @DesoGames @ParrotCapital 👆
2/ maybe more likely to be nothing but Tether's infamous "Secured Loans" number is only 3% less than the "Securities purchased under agreements to resell" on the #CantorFitzgerald balance sheet
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Read 7 tweets
Aug 30
🧵1/Ω
Just read #Chainalysis "2024 Crypto Crime Mid-Year Report". Obvs they have a habit of minimizing crypto crime stats but reading closely I realized this is kinda nuts. So nuts I that we need new rhyme akin to "pump & dump" vein. I give you:

"Minimize & Legitimize"

Ω👇Ω Image
🧵2/Ω
The report has two parts. I focused on the 2nd half because it makes a big deal about CSAM. Surprisingly to me it seemed like Chainalysis was for once maybe not downplaying something really bad...

But then I started checking the numbers.

(Report: )chainalysis.com/blog/2024-cryp…
🧵3/Ω
Below is the tweet I dashed off as did a quick scan. CSAM is bad. If CSAM number go up = really bad. Looked like Chainalysis was admitting bad number go up!

Which, speaking as someone who's checked their work on terrorism financing, was surprising.
Read 46 tweets

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