Crypto-Trading Company’s Founder- Accused
“Andrew Katz aka Ross Katz aka Stark Katz, the co-founder of so-called digital asset infrastructure and crypto-currency trading firm Seaquake.io, who along with his partner Matthew J. Krueger of San Francisco and UK citizen Dylan Knight are facing investor fraud charges, is now scheduled to appear in New York Criminal Court on April 30 to answer one count of felony assault, one count of grand larceny, and one count of aggravated harassment.
These charges stem from an incident Sources believe that the $100,000 in cash that Katz was required to post as collateral for his bail, which was set at $200,000, came from money that Katz and his partner Matthew J. Krueger of San Francisco stole 18 months ago from a family office in Florida. Katz’s bail was set at $200,000, and he was required to post $100,000 in cash.
The victim of the assault is Katz’s now-estranged wife, Selen Katz, a Turkish immigrant who appears to make her living as an Instagram fashion model. The case document is available via the New York Court System Case CR-02020482-20NY.
Defendant Katz, who still promotes himself on the firm’s website as co-founder of the so-called digital asset infrastructure company “Seaquake.io,” was arrested in New York this past November and now faces charges of 2nd Degree Felony Assault (a class D felony), one count of Grand Larceny (an E Felony), and one charge of Aggravated Harassment.
Additionally, he is charged with one count of Grand Larceny If Katz is found guilty of the charges against him or if he decides to plead guilty in order to spare the court system the hassle of having to deal with him, he could be sentenced to a prison term of at least two years duration.
Katz and Krueger, who have been called “the Crypto Kleptos” and “The Seaquake Slimeboys” by several people who have been interviewed, are also said to be facing a pending list of other criminal matters, including SBA PPP bank loan fraud. These monikers were given to them by a few of the people who were interviewed. According to the publicly available records, Messrs.
Katz and Krueger submitted an application for a PPP loan on behalf of Seaquake OPS LLC, a Wyoming company that Seaquake corporate presentations have named as being one of several Seaquake companies. In the month of May 2020, Seaquake OPS LLC was successful in obtaining a Paycheck Protection Loan from Wells Fargo Bank, National Association in the amount of $22,813.
Whether Katz or Krueger (or jointly) prepared the loan application when listing employees, Katz’s estranged wife was identified as the company’s Creative Director (whose employment with Seaquake, according to her LinkedIn profile, started in April of 2020). Since then, informed sources have indicated that Ms Katz had no recollection of ever having created a LinkedIn account, and she has stated that she was never an employee of any Seaquake entity. According to the police records in Los Angeles, Katz’s estrange
Katz is suspected of squirming through a variety of Airbnb rentals in Southern California while awaiting his April 30 court appearance, in addition to New York City. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office would not provide details as to Katz’s current place of residence; however, he lists residences in Arvada, Colorado (belonging to his parents Ken and Alyson Mahl Katz) in various documents, and he lists addresses in California and Florida in various bank account documents.
According to public databases, Katz has a history of assault charges, in addition to charges of harassment, breaking, and stalking that have been spread out over the course of the past few years.
In the Florida securities and investor fraud case (Crypto fraud) , in which defendants Katz and Krueger are charged with defrauding a Family Office, it is alleged that the Seaquake Slimeboys (mis) represented they were operating a start-up business and told investors that their several hundred thousand dollar investments in August 2019 “was for balance-sheet purposes only and to show pending venture investors the company did have other investors and assets on the balance sheet.”
In addition, it is alleged that the defendants told investors that Katz indicated in communications sent to the investors that a small portion of the capital would be deployed to a proprietary application for “high-frequency trading” of cryptocurrencies.
Unfortunately, there were no prospective venture capital investors for crypto , and there was no actual application for trading. Katz and Krueger transferred the investors’ money from one bank to another, then to an account on Coinbase, and finally to an account on the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. It is not hard to believe that Katz and Krueger, a person who formerly worked at PayPal and is knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies, have been taking advantage of the sixfold increase in the price of bitcoin that has occurred since the initial investor fraud was committed.
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