Documents tied to a U.S. Department of Justice civil forfeiture case have put renewed focus on how Tether accessed banking services through EQIBank, a licensed bank in Dominica. The Financial Times reported that 80% of EQIBank’s assets were frozen in a seizure action aimed at Capstone Limited, a company the bank relied on to hold funds in the United States and maintain relationships with U.S. banks.
The Financial Times said the link between Tether and EQIBank ran through Marlin Capital Partners. Marlin, which has served as an investment adviser to Tether, invested in EQIBank and reportedly promised more capital if the bank could help Tether open an account at DBS Bank in Singapore.
EQIBank also said in one filing that it had a relationship with Clarency, which "provides correspondent banking services through DBS Bank Singapore."
Capstone accused of hiding the nature of its business from U.S. banks
According to a civil forfeiture complaint filed in July, Capstone Limited allegedly misrepresented its business to several U.S. banks, including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank. It described itself as an "application development services" company rather than a money services business.
Capstone Limited was registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, as a money services business. But the complaint says it registered only in Montana, not in California where it actually operated, and did not clearly disclose that line of business when dealing with banks.
During negotiations with EQIBank, Capstone appears to have emphasized that registration. The complaint refers to an agreement dated Aug. 20, 2024 between "Dominica Bank 1" and Capstone stating that Capstone "is a FinCEN-registered technology development company and money services business."
The complaint also says the Montana Capstone entity was not incorporated until September 2024, which would mean it could not have been registered with FinCEN at the earlier time claimed in that agreement.
Prosecutors said Capstone ultimately moved hundreds of millions of dollars through its accounts. One passage in the complaint states that of the $337 million withdrawn from a Wells Fargo account ending in 7500, nearly two-thirds appeared to be payments made on behalf of "Cryptocurrency Company 1/Cryptocurrency Exchange 1" to hundreds of individuals and entities. A Chase account also sent international wires that appeared to be made on behalf of the same crypto company and exchange to individuals and entities.
The complaint describes "Cryptocurrency Company 1" as an offshore entity issuing a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to a corresponding fiat currency. It adds that people tied to that company were also tied to "Cryptocurrency Exchange 1." Based on the public description of the company’s U.S. Treasury holdings, Protos said those entities were likely Tether and Bitfinex.
The complaint also says Capstone received "U.S. Treasuries belonging to an offshore cryptocurrency company," which were transferred into a securities account opened in Capstone’s name.
EQIBank says the seizure froze about 80% of its monetary assets
EQIBank said in court documents that the frozen funds represented "approximately 80% of the Bank’s monetary assets."
It also said the seizure triggered action from the Financial Services Unit, or FSU, which placed the bank under enhanced supervision and warned that additional steps could follow, including possible liquidation.
In the filing, EQIBank said: "The Bank has thereby suffered a severe liquidity crisis. If the Bank fails, the years of work by the directors, officers and founders since 2018 will be destroyed."
The filings raised another issue. EQIBank listed assets that did not appear to match the government’s public forfeiture schedule. The bank said it believed one account held more money than the government seized, but added that this may have been because "Capstone appears to have misled the Bank via the portal system as to the amount of monies held at certain banks for the Bank."
The documents also referred to funds at Barclays and Clear Bank that were not shown on the government’s public seizure list.
Kotaro Shimogori and a long history in high-risk payment processing
Capstone has, in many settings, said that Mary Jeanne Thompson led or operated the company. But the forfeiture complaint says Thompson told the FBI that she had little to do with Capstone.
The complaint goes further: "Her husband Kotaro Shimogori ... is the true operator of Capstone."
According to the report, Shimogori has spent years in the payment processing business, with repeated disputes along the way. In the 2000s, just days after Ikessai, Inc. and Shimogori himself were named in litigation alleging violations of contracts tied to payment agreements, Shimogori became the company’s agent. That suit was later dismissed. The same case said Shimogori was also chief executive of another payments company, Okaikei, Inc. Around that period, his website included a page dedicated to "credit card authorization & settlement."
Shimogori also served as president of Foreal, Inc. in the 2000s. That company was sued for contract fraud, and the court entered a default judgment of $589,097.47.
Shimogori and Thompson have more recently filed for bankruptcy. Their bankruptcy papers list a $500,000 claim tied to that litigation, and the creditor from the case also appears on the discharge schedule.
In 2011, a company called TechnoUnicorn Ltd was incorporated in Hong Kong. It later changed its name to ComCopious Limited and then to Capstone Limited. Protos said this was not the Montana Capstone Limited registered with FinCEN and used by EQIBank. It also was not Capstone US Limited, whose director is listed as George Thompson and whose address matches a contact address Shimogori used for Trans Global Systems Ltd.
It was also separate from Capstone SGP Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, where Shimogori served as a director, and separate from the California Comcopious entity associated with him, though the overlap in names stands out.
Shimogori was a director of the Hong Kong company and held 13,500 of its 15,000 shares.
While the company was still named ComCopious Limited, a website at icanpay.cn.com carried a copyright notice for "COMCOPIOUS, LIMITED" and advertised that if a client’s business fell into a high-risk merchant category, its proprietary system could get an application approved within minutes.
Both the Hong Kong and California ComCopious entities, along with Shimogori personally, have been sued multiple times over allegations including fraud, conversion, and breach of contract. Those cases give a look at the kinds of clients served by the businesses, and they match the high-risk pitch in the advertising.
In the Life-FX case, plaintiffs were described as a company selling biochemical compounds online to companies and scientists involved in non-clinical scientific research, especially in cognition, metabolism, and longevity enhancement; a company running a legal online medical cannabis and cannabis-related products dispensary; and another company selling cannabis seeds online.
In the Helexo case, defendants said in a filing supporting their motion that "Helexo operates multiple gambling websites, which are illegal in California." Shimogori said in a declaration in that same case that "iCanPay assisted Helexo in processing credit card transactions and transferred monies payable to Helexo into a cryptocurrency wallet maintained by Helexo." The suit also alleged that "iCanPay used Shimogori’s personal HSBC account ... to fulfill iCanPay’s basic obligations."
Fresh Horizons followed a similar pattern. According to Shimogori, Fresh Horizons Limited was "a British Virgin Islands gaming company" offering remote gaming services under a license from the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. A memorandum from the defendants also alleged that Fresh Horizons operated "in a legal grey area through a British Virgin Islands shell company."
The litigation also named Pan Digital Network Limited in the U.K., formerly Comcopious UK Limited, another entity where Shimogori served as a director and exercised significant influence or control. Separate from that was a California-registered Pan Digital Network Ltd, where Shimogori was the incorporator and Thompson was listed as chief executive and director.
Protos said Pan Digital Network is now facing litigation alleging that "Pan Digital Network Limited used to and still does operate the Brango gambling platform."
Taken together, the recent seizure involving Capstone appears to be only one part of Shimogori’s broader history in high-risk payment processing, and the companies named in the report may represent only part of that network.
The report also said several websites shared the same IP address, including sites that appeared connected to Capstone and Shimogori’s own personal site, suggesting the same hosting setup.
Shimogori’s personal website prominently listed design awards, patents, and his record as an "e-commerce pioneer" for companies such as WorkoutUltimate and NIKO NIKO. Workout Ultimate was an earlier name for California Pan Digital Network Limited.
The site niko-niko.co.uk previously said it was "owned by Capstone Limited and operated by AuthPay Limited." The domain no longer has DNS records, but Protos said it still resolves if queried through 78.129.240.8 and still references AuthPay.
Metadata on the site said: "NIKO NIKO’s secure banking technology was developed under the strategic oversight of Kotaro Shimogori, a fintech pioneer with extensive expertise in secure payment systems and cross-cultural digital commerce."
The domain nikoniko.co.uk still has DNS records. It also mentions AuthPay, and its source code contains the same description of Shimogori.
Other websites tied to the same IP address referenced names linked to Shimogori, including ComCopious, Caikhien, Secher, Capricorn Innovations, and Trans Global Systems Ltd.
Complaint says some funds were tied to scams
The government’s civil forfeiture complaint says part of the money processed by Capstone Limited was tied to fraud.
It states that a Chase account ending in 6970 was used to receive proceeds from impersonation scams. In those schemes, fraudsters posed as government or law enforcement officials and pressured victims into wiring money. Victims then sent funds to the Chase account on the fraudsters’ instructions.
The complaint describes several victims. One was a 69-year-old who received a call from someone posing as an FBI agent and was told he was "a person of interest in a transnational money laundering investigation." Another victim was told she appeared to be involved in serious criminal conduct and would be arrested unless she paid a "bond" equal to part of her assets. A third victim was told by an impersonator claiming to be an FBI agent that his name was linked to an account suspected of laundering $2.38 million.
When JPMorgan Chase asked questions, the complaint says the bank received a "Capstone Limited Contract Services Agreement" dated May 20, 2025 stating that Capstone would provide "software development and related technical services" to an offshore counterparty. It also received a Capstone invoice dated Nov. 12, 2025 charging that offshore counterparty $1.9 million for software licenses, website development, advanced web modules, and API integration, along with a bill showing that the offshore counterparty charged Victim 1 a "service fee" of $868,000.
The complaint adds: "During a call with JPMorgan Chase, Thompson was unable to answer basic questions and instead deferred to Kotaro Shimogori, who gave inconsistent answers as to who provided the software — Capstone or the offshore counterparty — and claimed Victim 1 was purchasing a medical billing system."
JPMorgan Chase did not identify any real software development work and concluded that the software-related claims "appear to be fictitious."
According to the complaint, Capstone’s own chief operating officer, whose identity was not disclosed, undercut that software explanation. The person told Miami Beach police that he had "sold Victim 1 $900,000 worth of USDT Tether (TRC20 coin)," transferred the tokens to a wallet, and later saw the wire payment reversed.
An executive summary submitted to Miami Beach police said: "The Bank of America wire was sent into Capstone’s JPMorgan Chase account for the purchase/settlement of USDT (Tether) ... after on-chain delivery of the USDT was completed at the instruction of Capstone’s institutional counterparty, the original wire was recalled/reported as fraud."
The report said the chief operating officer was not identified, but noted that Capstone US Limited, linked to George Thompson and sharing an address with other Shimogori-connected companies, lists Michael Khait as a director with a registered address in Miami Beach.
EQIBank’s tie to DeFi project EQIFi and the EQX token
EQIBank, the licensed bank in Dominica that relied on Capstone, has been thrown into disorder by the seizure. In its filings, the bank said again that the restrained funds accounted for about 80% of its money assets.
The report says Tether appears to have kept part of its reserves at the bank. It also says the bank had another unusual connection: a crypto token.
EQIFi was initially promoted with the line: "EQIBank, one of the world’s leading digital banks, today announces the launch of EQIFI — the global DeFi alternative to traditional financial products."
An EQIFi-affiliated entity later issued the EQX token, advertising it as a governance token for the platform and saying token holders could receive lower fees and better rates across trades and other services. EQIFi also said EQX could give holders "priority access to EQIBank bank accounts." The token was once listed on KuCoin but has since been delisted.
Beyond Enterprises, sometimes written as Beyond Enterprizes, led by Brad Yasar, was named as a "joint venture partner" tied to the token and is now suing EQIBank for alleged breach of contract.
Invoices filed in that case included USDT payment addresses. Protos said that when those dates and amounts are compared with on-chain activity, EQIBank and EQITech (SEZC) Limited were likely paying in USDT. That would suggest Tether was not just a client of EQIBank; EQIBank itself was using USDT for payments.
Marlin Capital, Deltec, and Tether’s banking links
The Financial Times said Marlin Capital Partners was the firm that invested in EQIBank and promised more investment if the bank could secure the DBS relationship for Tether.
In a U.K. court filing, Marlin Capital was described as Tether’s "de facto financial adviser." Documents filed with the Securities Commission of The Bahamas list Zachary Lyons as the company’s chief executive officer, adviser representative, and managing representative.
Lyons was later named Tether’s chief investment officer, replacing Richard Heathcote, who had also served as an adviser representative at Marlin Capital.
Before that, both Heathcote and Lyons worked at BankPro, where Heathcote was chief executive. Earlier still, both had served as representatives of Deltec Bank and Trust. Deltec has long been a significant banking partner for Tether, providing services when many institutions would not.
Lyons also sits on the board of Twenty One, a Tether-backed company.
Crypto Capital comes back into the picture
Protos argues that Tether’s direct or indirect reliance on questionable payment processors has been a recurring pattern. The clearest earlier example was the relationship between Tether, Bitfinex, and Crypto Capital Corp.
Crypto Capital Corp was an unlicensed payment company. When its funds were seized, the fallout created major problems for Tether and Bitfinex. In that earlier episode, Tether, and especially Bitfinex, depended on the company and its operators to maintain access to the U.S. banking system.
Those funds were ultimately seized in investigations tied to money laundering and drug proceeds. That left a major hole on the books of Tether and Bitfinex. After the problem became public, the two companies issued the Unus Sed Leo, or LEO, token to raise enough money to fill the gap.
Now, after the seizure of accounts tied to another payment processor, Tether and Bitfinex appear to have again lost access to part of their funds. The difference this time is scale: even if the full $84 million seized belonged to Tether, it would still represent only a tiny fraction of Tether’s reserves.
Tether told the Financial Times that it had "no knowledge" of the fraud alleged by the DOJ against Capstone.
A lawyer for Capstone told the Financial Times that the company "denies any wrongdoing and plans to file a motion to dismiss shortly, challenging the government’s civil asset forfeiture complaint and its allegations." The lawyer added: "Capstone has cooperated with the government’s investigation and hopes to resolve this matter promptly." The report said the company later filed that motion.
Protos said it also contacted Capstone, Shimogori, and EQIBank for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.