Capstone Ltd
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anchored·47pfYD…3dBhSummary
Capstone Ltd is a Montana-incorporated payments firm whose bank accounts were frozen by U.S. federal prosecutors in September 2026 following a civil forfeiture complaint alleging it operated as an unlicensed money transmitter across at least six U.S. states. The complaint, filed July 15, 2026 in the Eastern District of California, alleges Capstone misrepresented itself to U.S. banks as an IT services company while processing international wire transfers on behalf of EQIBank, a Dominica-licensed digital bank later identified by the Financial Times as a correspondent for stablecoin issuer Tether and affiliated exchange Bitfinex. Neither Tether, Bitfinex, nor EQIBank face criminal charges; the case against Capstone remains a civil forfeiture action with no criminal conviction entered as of September 26, 2026.
Connected Entities
1 entityNo connected entities recorded yet — this investigation is not currently linked to any other page in the index.
Timeline(9 events)
1 March 2025
Capstone Ltd's Wells Fargo account begins disbursing funds; court documents later allege approximately $337 million was disbursed between March and December 2025, with nearly two-thirds allegedly processed on behalf of unnamed crypto firms.
Cryptopolitan citing DOJ complaint31 December 2025
End of the period cited in court documents during which Capstone's Wells Fargo account processed $337 million in disbursements.
Cryptopolitan citing DOJ complaint15 July 2026
DOJ files civil forfeiture complaint in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California (Judge Dale A. Drozd) targeting accounts and crypto wallets held by Capstone Ltd.
Decrypt / PYMNTS9 September 2026
EQIBank warns that losing approximately 80% of its monetary holdings could force liquidation, signaling awareness of the impending seizure.
CryptoTimes14 September 2026
Federal prosecutors execute seizures totaling $84.2 million: $79.11M from Wells Fargo Securities, $1.86M from Wells Fargo Bank, $2.06M from JPMorgan Chase, and approximately 1.18–1.68M USDT across two cryptocurrency wallets.
Spaziocrypto / CryptoTimes14 September 2026
FBI executes search warrant at the Sacramento, California residence of Capstone owners Kotaro Shimogori and Mary Jeanne Thompson.
Decrypt25 September 2026
Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that the two unnamed crypto firms in the complaint are Tether and Bitfinex. Tether publicly confirms funds are stuck at EQIBank and issues statement denying knowledge of Capstone's alleged misconduct.
FT via Finextra / CryptoTimes25 September 2026
EQIBank's emergency motion for return of frozen assets is denied by the court. EQIBank files innocent-owner defense claiming it was deceived about Capstone's registration status.
Spaziocrypto26 September 2026
Case remains active and pending. No criminal charges have been filed against any party. Capstone has stated it plans to challenge the forfeiture complaint.
PYMNTSDecision Log
- hash: 6SYfccNoYxn1TcgNXA4RUKNfmCzNwcYFNMKTohNPHZH6
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 4 of 12 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 9/26/2026, 12:03:06 PM
last updated: 9/26/2026, 1:10:50 PM
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