American economist Peter Schiff, gold entrepreneur and famous critic of Bitcoin, had a branch of his investment bank Euro Pacific International closed by Puerto Rico regulators for lack of liquidity.
As he described on Twitter, he was not given a chance to sell the company due to “false allegations” about its bad reputation in the media.
Here’s another headline you won’t read. Peter Schiff’s bank falsely accused by the media of facilitating tax evasion and money laundering is being closed, because even though it’s innocent, it’s premature conviction by the media ruined its reputation and crippled it financially.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 4, 2022
According to a press report on Friday, authorities placed a stop order on the bank’s activities as part of the ongoing investigation, with the bank’s capital reportedly negative at $1.3 million.
Through a thread on Sunday night on Twitter, Schiff vented about the situation and claimed there were no irregularities.
“Due to no evidence of crimes, regulators in Puerto Rico closed my bank for liquidity problems rather than allowing it to be sold to a highly qualified buyer promising to inject capital far beyond what regulation requires. As a result, accounts have been frozen, and customers may lose their money.” Schiff tweeted
Despite no evidence of crimes, Puerto Rico regulators closed my bank anyway for net capital issues, rather than allow a sale to a highly qualified buyer promising to inject capital far in excess of regulatory minimums. As a result accounts are frozen and customers may lose money.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 3, 2022
However, due to its history of criticizing bitcoin, it also became a target for the bitcoin community. After the outburst, Bitcoin fans were not forgiving, as Schiff, who was also famous for predicting the 2008 US mortgage crisis – called bitcoin a bubble several times and always refuted Bitcoiners when it came to the concept of the BTC as digital gold.
