Canadian Court Froze Thousands Of Protester’s Funds Including BTC

The Canadian court froze thousands of protesters’ funds including amid the ongoing protests in Ottawa as we are reading more in today’s latest Bitcoin news.

The Ontario Superior Court judge issued an order to freeze millions of dollars in funds including funds in crypto as the Ottawa convoy protests continue. The freezing order by the Canadian court is known as the Mareva injunction was made late yesterday as a part of the wider lawsuit filed against the convoy by the residents in the city. Paul Champ, the lawyer for the residents of Ottawa said:

“I can confirm that this is the first successful. Mareva order in Canada targeting Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Trucker receives $8k in bitcoin on livestream: pic.twitter.com/soNrqSZgc8

— Tim Pastoor 🛻🇨🇦🚛🇨🇦🚚🇨🇦 (@[email protected]) (@timpastoor) February 18, 2022

The Canadian government is involved in an ongoing effort to seize the protestor’s funds and the freeze order as a separate process is aimed at redistributing the funds of about $20 million at the time of writing to the Ottawa citizens. The redistribution will occur if the lawsuit against the convoy succeeds. The order was issued by Justice Calum MacLeod who told the protesters that they are restrained from selling, removing, alienating, and transferring any of the assets that were raised in relation to the ongoing protests. Keith Wilson, a lawyer representing the protesters said that they haven’t been served with the order or other related court documents.

The protests in Ottawa have been going on for about three weeks now and they started in protests against the COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The Convoy is called the “Freedom convoy” by the supporters and congregated near Parliament Hill in Ottawa and the protesters even raised about $10 million on a GoFundMe page before the fundraising platform took the page down. The fundraising has become more inventive and some were reliant on cryptocurrencies. Jordan Peterson, the well-known professor and public intellectual tweeted in support of the convoy:

“Thank God for Bitcoin.”

Thank God for Bitcoin https://t.co/zNTbr1wlbe

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) February 18, 2022

The Ontario Court order targets entities that were confirmed as holding assets for the convoy itself such as established Canadian banks including TD Canada Trust and ATB Financial. The order is aimed at 150 crypto wallets as well and Jeffrey Booth who is a Vancouver entrepreneur was named in the order:

“I’m a keyholder for this—that’s it. I haven’t raised a dollar. I haven’t donated a dollar of my own and I’m not an organizer. I am just a keyholder in a decentralized platform.”