Mikhail Reider-Gordon, an anti-money laundering expert with US-based Affiliated Monitors, a financial due diligence company, and a professor at the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Austria, told The Times of Israel that Celsius would have been required to disclose information about its executives’ side businesses to US regulators. The Times of Israel contacted several anti-money laundering experts to ask what, if any, background checks a C-level executive of a Money Service Business such as Cohen-Pavon would be required to do on any other business partners he may have outside the Money Service Business that employs him. “We have a robust AML program with a knowledgeable team of veteran AML professionals that are Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS),” the company website states. The entire binary options industry, which at its height employed thousands of Israelis, was banned by Knesset legislation in 2017 for being widely fraudulent and linked to organized crime. She is the owner of an Israeli call center that ran the binary options website. On July 1, Oved’s shares were transferred to his wife, Liat Kurtz-Oved. The second of these, NNY Capital Ltd., was set up with Oved on May 5, 2021. At around that time, he began establishing side businesses. He left to work for Celsius Network in September 2020. Cohen-Pavon told The Times of Israel that the side companies he established never had any business activity and were not related in any way to his work at Celsius Network.Ĭohen-Pavon is a former attorney at leading Israeli law firm Herzog, Fox, Neeman. It claims not merely to be benefiting consumers but to be “ ushering in a new economy” in which traditional banks will be rendered obsolete by cryptocurrency platforms.Ĭelsius told The Times of Israel that it takes regulatory requirements very seriously, has not violated any laws or regulations, and was not required to disclose information about Cohen-Pavon’s side businesses to US regulators. The company recently attracted $750 million in funding from prominent investors, including a Canadian pension fund, and says it manages $26 billion in deposits - compared to $1 billion a year ago. It operates as a kind of crypto bank that allows clients to deposit cryptocurrency and borrow either cryptocurrency or US dollars. The Times of Israel can reveal that a second senior Celsius Network employee, its chief revenue officer Roni Cohen-Pavon, in May established a side business with a convicted money launderer.Ĭelsius Network, founded in 2017, employs over 100 people in Israel.
The company announced on November 26 that it had suspended the employee. The probe is subject to a gag order imposed by an Israeli judge and The Times of Israel is not permitted to reveal the name or identifying details of, or allegations against, the employee. Celsius Network, a leading US-based cryptocurrency lending platform with a $3 billion valuation, announced last month that one of its senior employees was the focus of an Israeli police probe.
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