Australia financial regulator ASIC has announced that former finance director Brendan Gunn has been sentenced in the Local Court of NSW, for dealing with over $180,000 when it was reasonable to suspect that those funds were proceeds of crime.

Brendan Gunn was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, to be released immediately upon entering into a recognizance of $3,000 requiring he be of good behaviour for 12 months. The maximum sentence of imprisonment able to be imposed in a summary prosecution for this offence is 12 months.

The funds were suspected of being proceeds of crime derived from an offshore cryptocurrency investment scam that targeted Australians.

Background

From December 2018, Brendan Gunn was a director of Mormarkets Pty Ltd, trading as Coinshype. Mormarkets received deposits from Australians for cryptocurrency and other purported investments.

Between January 2019 and May 2020, 22 separate bank accounts with six different financial institutions were opened in Mormarkets’ name. On a number of occasions, banks informed Mr Gunn that they had received complaints that funds credited to Mormarkets accounts had been affected by fraud or other suspicious activity.

All accounts associated with Mormarkets were eventually closed by the banks.

When two of the Mormarkets bank accounts were closed, Mr Gunn received two bank cheques which included proceeds of investment amounts totalling $181,000. He then dealt with the bank cheques by sending them to an associate. In January 2026, Brendan Gunn pleaded guilty to dealing with this money that was reasonably suspected of being the proceeds of crime.

Brendan Gunn FX and CFDs career

Brendan Gunn is a well-known and longtime FX and CFDs industry executive. He began his career as Director Global Client Services APAC for GAIN Capital and its Forex.com brand (2006-2013), before serving as CEO of Invast Financial Services (now 26 Degrees) from 2013-2015. From 2016-2020 Brendan ran FX industry news site The Industry Spread, and since he has been involved in a number of businesses, include CFD executives recruiting through The Hive International. Brendan is also known in his native country as the brother of popular Australian Olympic athlete and competitive breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn.

ASIC Chair Sarah Court said,

“Mr Gunn ignored several clear warnings, including customer complaints made to Mormarkets’ various Australian banks, that the money moving through Mormarkets’ accounts was linked to suspected scam activity. By continuing to deal with those funds, he helped suspected international scammers move money taken from Australians.

“ASIC is committed to disrupting scams and, where possible, holding those who enable them to account. This case is another example of ASIC’s broad work to combat scams, from pursuing alleged facilitators of cross-border investment scams, to taking action against institutions whose failures leave customers exposed.”

The sentence follows an ASIC investigation. The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP) after an ASIC referral.