Cryptocurrency counters | The owner of Instacoin linked to a mafia boss

A businessman who owns 153 cryptocurrency counters in Canada has business ties with the leader of a discreet mafia clan and his relatives.

Hugo Joncas
The Press

Onofrio Simone Santamaria’s company, Instacoin ATM inc., is one of the largest in the industry. It advertises on Société de transport de Montréal buses and operates nearly 20% of ticket offices in Québec. She was staying until recently in a building with tinted windows on rue Jarry Est belonging to the family of Serafino Oliverio, injured in an attempted murder last November.

The Press revealed on Monday the scale of the cryptocurrency ATM industry. Several companies have complained that the laws governing them are vague, especially since they themselves are responsible for reporting suspicious transactions to the authorities.

Oliverio, aka Sergio Lopez, survived a rain of twenty bullets near his home in Rivière-des-Prairies last fall. He escaped with injuries to his forearm and ankle. The police consider him to be a member of the old guard of the Montreal mafia, involved in the importation, distribution and sale of cocaine.

His wife, Maria Farella, owns Café Gelato on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. But it is the owner of Instacoin, Simone Santamaria, who runs the establishment with one of their sons. According to the business register, he is vice-president of the company that owns the business. The police met him for repeated breaches of health rules related to COVID-19 in the establishment, according to a decision of the tribunal of the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ).

Last April, the officers who visited the Café considered their intervention as an “organized crime or street gang affair”, according to a report presented to the organization.

The police arrested on the spot Alexandre Boivin and Tomasso James Burcheri, two individuals whom the police consider to be relatives of Davide Barberio, boss of the street for the mafia, according to police information. Like Oliverio, this kingpin survived an attempted murder last fall. A gunman pierced his abdomen with a pistol fitted with a silencer, in front of his children, in his garage in Laval.

Last September, the RACJ court finally ordered the suspension of Café Gelato’s liquor license for its sanitary pranks.

Simone Santamaria’s financial relations with Oliverio are not limited to the management of the family business. In 2016, the caïd, a construction contractor, sold him a condo on boulevard Gouin Est for $252,000, by lending him himself part of the sum necessary for the transaction, according to the land register.

The Press was able to speak for a few seconds on the phone with Simone Santamaria, who is also vice-president of the Petite Italie–Marché Jean-Talon business development company. He first promised to call us back a few hours later. However, he never answered our subsequent phone calls.

No connection to Oliverio, says Instacoin

Instacoin left the property of Serafino Oliverio’s family three weeks ago to settle on the third floor of a building on rue de Jaffa in Laval, on the edge of Highway 15.

Met at the door of his offices, the president and chief compliance officer of the company, Michael Lo Verso, assures that Instacoin has no connection with the mafia clan led by the kingpin. “We had a lease with him, and we left the building. So I don’t see what connection you are trying to make. »

Simone Santamaria’s business ties have nothing to do with Instacoin, he says. Michael Lo Verso points out that the company has the required authorizations from the financial intelligence services and Revenu Québec to operate its network.

“If there was a problem, do you think they would have granted us our permits? ” he asks.

The Money Services Businesses Act provides that the directors of a company operating counters “must have good character”. To determine whether this is the case, the authorities must take into account “the links between the persons or entities concerned […] with a criminal organization.

Revenu Québec, which took over from the Autorité des marchés financiers in overseeing the ATM industry last September, did not want to “confirm or deny” whether an investigation was underway into a cryptocurrency company under his supervision.

Network for sale

After developing the Instacoin network, Simone Santamaria is looking for a buyer for her shares, claims Michael Lo Verso.

“He holds his shares until an investor makes a suitable and advantageous offer,” according to an email he sent to The Press after our meeting.

Simone Santamaria created Instacoin ATM in 2015 to “sell and distribute” technology from another company, Chainlogic Software Inc.

This Montreal company patented its system and the Instacoin trademark in 2016, according to Industry Canada documents.

Chainlogic financed the transaction itself. The company took a $250,000 guarantee on the assets of Instacoin ATM and Simone Santamaria’s holding company, according to public filings.

The loan would have allowed Chainlogic owners Jonathan Valicenti and Carlo Pansera to acquire “preferred shares” of Instacoin ATM, according to Michael Lo Verso. The Press wanted to know if that meant that they were also shareholders of the company, but we did not get an answer. Their names do not appear in the business register.

Fuzzy framework for 270 counters

More than 270 cryptocurrency ATMs have appeared in Quebec in recent years, according to the Coin ATM Radar site. The proliferation of these machines raises concerns here and elsewhere because of the ease with which criminals could use them to launder money. The US Drug Enforcement Agency issued a warning to this effect in 2021, as did the Vancouver police in 2019.

Revenu Québec and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC) – the organizations responsible for overseeing these counters under the law – do not know the actual number of machines in operation in the province, reveals a survey by The Press published on Monday.

The tax authorities also seem to know relatively little about the owners of companies that operate crypto counters. The public register of money-services businesses maintained by Revenu Québec “does not contain the names of the owners and/or operators of these ATMs,” a spokesperson said by email.

A tour of The Press in Greater Montreal found that Instacoin ATMs are found in a variety of locations, such as a low-cost motel along a highway on the South Shore, a laundromat in a small shopping center in Laval and many convenience stores. At least eight ATM companies compete in Greater Montreal.

With the collaboration of Maxime Bergeron and Daniel Renaud, The Press

If you have information of public interest on cryptocurrency companies in Quebec, contact our journalist at [email protected] or 438 396-5546 (telephone, Signal).

Who is Serafino Oliverio, aka Sergio Lopez?

• 70 years
• He survived an attempted murder near his home last November.
• At the time of Operation Colisée against the Montreal Mafia, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police observed his conversations with several Montreal Mafia lieutenants.
• His clan was already active when the Italian underworld was ruled by Calabrians, but like others, he rallied to the Sicilians when they seized power in the mid-1980s.
• In 2018, he and his company Olicon Development were fined $75,000 for tax evasion.
• When he wanted to renew the license of his construction company, Serafino Oliverio lied to the Régie du bâtiment du Québec by declaring that he had never been convicted of violations of tax laws.