Court Freezes $7.6 Million Assets Of Satoshi Wannabe Craig Wright To Prevent Legal Costs Evasion

A UK court has approved a “worldwide freezing order” for £6 million ($7.6 million) worth of assets belonging to fake Satoshi Craig Wright. The move aims to prevent Wright from moving the money offshore before his legal remedies are exhausted.

Judge Freezes Wright’s Assets To Pay £6.7M Legal Bill 

Concerned that Craig Wright could try to avoid the financial judgment handed to him after a United Kingdom court debunked that he is not the creator of Bitcoin, Judge James Mellor issued an order on March 28 freezing a huge chunk of his assets. 

According to a court document, Judge Mellor endorsed the ‘worldwide freezing order’ on Wright’s assets to address Crypto Open Patent Alliance’s (COPAs) total court expenses amounting to 6.7 million pounds and protect against Wright “dissipating” his assets. 

“Dr. Wright has a history of default in relation to orders for the payment of money,” Mellor said, before citing some examples. “… I consider there is a very real risk of dissipation.”

Fake Satoshi Attempted To Hide Assets

The freeze was expedited after Wright moved shares of his London company, RCJBR Holding, to a Singaporean entity on March 18.

“Understandably, that gave rise to serious concerns on COPA’s part that Dr Wright was implementing measures to seek to evade the costs consequences of his loss at trial,” Mellor noted.

COPA lodged the lawsuit against Wright in April 2021, challenging his claims of being the person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and thus owning the copyright to Bitcoin. 

Wright sued over a dozen Bitcoin Core developers and several prominent blockchain companies, including Blockstream and Coinbase, in 2023 for copyright infringements relating to the Bitcoin white paper, and database rights to the BTC blockchain. But as you may recall, Judge Mellor concluded earlier this month that the Australian computer scientist was not Satoshi nor the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper, ZyCrypto previously reported.

“COPA has a very powerful claim to be awarded a very substantial sum in costs,” the judge wrote, acknowledging that COPA and the affiliated developers were the winning party.

Bitcoin was changing hands at $70,055 at press time, a +1% change over the past 24 hours.