First BVI Freezing Order Granted Against 'persons Unknown' In Crypto Fraud Case

On 4 May 2022, the BVI Commercial Court handed down its judgment in ChainSwap v Persons Unknown.  This judgment marks the first time that the BVI court has granted a freezing order over assets held by persons unknown in relation to crypto fraud and follows similar decisions in the UK and other commonwealth countries where such relief is now commonly granted.  Given the nature of the respondents as 'persons unknown', the Court permitted ChainSwap to serve the respondents outside the jurisdiction by alternative methods.

In this case, ChainSwap, a BVI incorporated entity that provides a service that allows cryptocurrency tokens to be transferred between different blockchains, known as a cross-chain bridge, was the subject of two hacks in July 2021: the first hack allowed fraudsters to divert cryptocurrency from recipient wallets to private wallets that they controlled and the second hack allowed the fraudsters to effectively mint unlimited new tokens and redirect