In a positive sign for victims of failed Bitcoin exchange Cryptsy (Project Investors, Inc.) a court has taken possession of the company’s assets, appointed a receiver and has suspended all powers of the company’s agents, employees, officers, and directors.

The order came from the United State District Court South District of Florida in the case of Brandon Leidel, Michael Wilson, and all others “similarly situated” versus Project Investors, Inc., Paul Vernon (the founder of Cryptsy) and Lorie Ann Nettles, Vernon’s partner in crime, according to documents sent to SiliconANGLE by the law firm representing the plaintiffs.

Also included in the order is the prohibition of individuals and entities with any control of Cryptsy assets from transferring them, including assets on deposit with any financial institutions, crypto exchanges or third parties, as well as the granting of rights to the receiver to use any reasonable effort to determine the location and value of any assets held by the company.

Big Vern disappears

Of interest in the order is a note that founder Paul “Big Vern” Vernon has not been served paperwork or has appeared before the court suggesting that he has disappeared.

Big Vern last appeared online in March when he has posted a contract titled “Cryptsy Recovery Bounty Final” on the Cryptsy website that promised to pay 1750 Bitcoin ($725,000) to “Cryptcracker,” the alleged hacker of 13,000 Bitcoin ($5.38 million) from the site should he or she return them.

Vernon first made the claim that Cryptsy had been hacked in January, and alleged at the time that trojan malware was inserted into Cryptsy’s code by the developer of Lucky7Coin giving access to the company’s wallets, but more remarkably claimed this had occurred 18 months prior in 2014; where the story became even more bizarre and unbelievable is that instead of letting customers know what had happened, Vern had decided to continue running Cryptsy in an effort to work their way back to solvency.

Bonus points were earned when Vernon then claimed to have never reported the theft to authorities, as he didn’t know to who to report it to.

The last good news from the court order is that as Nettles was named in the order, the freezing of assets extends to an all-cash purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida, purchased in May 2015 by Vernon but subsequently transferred to Nettles in what is alleged by the plaintiffs to be an attempt to hide assets.

It’s not clear how long the receivership process will take, but however long there is now a hope that the victims, in this case, could have at least some of their lost funds returned to them.

We’ll keep covering the case as it progresses.

Image credit: ncindc/Flickr/CC by 2.0