Chilean crypto exchange Orionx has suspended customer withdrawals and begun a definitive wind-down after saying a forensic audit found that more than $7 million of custodied assets had been transferred to wallets outside the company’s control.
Customers cannot currently withdraw funds because Orionx says withdrawals are temporarily suspended as its closure and restitution process gets underway. Chile’s Commission for the Financial Market, or CMF, said it neither supervises the closure nor has authority to order the return of customer funds because Orionx is not registered or authorized by the regulator.
Criminal complaint names former executives
Orionx said it filed a report with Chile’s Public Prosecutor’s Office and submitted a criminal complaint dated Sept. 2 against former executives. La Tercera, citing the complaint, identified them as Orionx partner Roberto Zibert, a former general manager, and Joaquín Díaz, a former technology manager. The company accused them of disloyal administration, according to that report.
Those claims come from Orionx’s criminal complaint. Cointelegraph reported that Zibert and Díaz denied the allegations and said they never acted against customers’ interests.
Audit figures differ from the exchange’s public $7 million claim
In its public notice, Orionx said transactions that moved assets to wallets it did not administer exceeded $7 million. But the audit figures described in the complaint and reported by La Tercera add up to about $6.98 million in accounting differences across Bitcoin, Ether, XRP and Polygon. The complaint separately described the resulting loss at about $6.07 million.
According to La Tercera’s account of the filing, the external audit reconciled Orionx’s internal records with data visible on the relevant blockchains. It allegedly found differences of about $3.93 million in Bitcoin, $2.29 million in Ether, $762,017 in XRP and $201 in Polygon. The complaint says outbound transfers were omitted from the internal ledger or offset through unsupported accounting adjustments.
The filing alleges that the questioned transfers took place between 2018 and 2021. It says 79 BTC linked to Orionx custody moved through a Celsius account maintained by Zibert and an account associated with the email address comisiones@orionx.com to an unidentified account. It also alleges that an account linked to Díaz received more than $1.5 million across 14 transactions.
CMF says customers should file claims directly with Orionx
The CMF said it rejected Orionx’s application for registration and authorization under Chile’s Fintech Law on June 19. After that rejection, the company could only conclude existing operations rather than begin new ones, the regulator said. CMF also said Orionx had not demonstrated that it held the guarantees required of authorized providers.
For customers, the regulator’s guidance is to submit claims directly to Orionx and keep evidence of balances, including account statements, transaction records and communications with the exchange. Customers may also seek restitution through Chilean courts or report suspected crimes to judicial authorities.
Restitution process remains in its first stage
On Orionx’s status page, restitution is described as a five-stage process that is still in stage one, a public closure notice. The remaining stages are opening support chat, reconciling all balances, approving a restitution plan and returning funds.
The notice says Orionx will seek to return as much of customers’ assets as possible. It does not guarantee full recovery.