PANews on Oct. 24 -- According to an indictment filed last week, Richard Sanders, founder of blockchain investigative firm CipherBlade, said the new management stole his company's assets, forged signatures and took items from his home, according to The Block. According to the lawsuit, trouble ensued after Sanders traveled to Ukraine in 2022 to voluntarily participate in an investigation involving cryptocurrencies.

"The defendants, knowing that Sanders would be in Ukraine, made material misrepresentations to Sanders immediately before and after his departure in order to gain access to his account, steal trade secrets, inventory, and investigative data in the form of confidential investigative information, customer leads, customer information, etc., and steal access to the CipherBlade PA business itself," the filing reads. "The defendants named in the lawsuit also redirected customers to an entity in Alaska and another entity in Singapore.
CipherBlade refuted Sanders' allegations in a LinkedIn post. Sanders, who was never the owner, "ceased to be actively involved in CipherBlade's operations throughout 2022 and effectively ceased that involvement altogether when he moved to Ukraine in early 2023 for a personal public interest mission," the company said. ”