Courts move on Kishu Inu, Tokenize Xchange founders as victims get recovery update

Victims got good news this week as crypto exchange founders Alexander Sisemore (Kishu Inu) and Hong Qi Yu (Tokenize Xchange) faced court action in the United States and Singapore, respectively. 

Sisemore faces an indictment for his alleged role in a $9 million fraud affecting users of his exchange. Hong Qi Yu, on the other hand, had S$ 53 million in assets frozen by a court in Singapore.

However, those actions are resolved; victims face recovering pennies on every lost dollar as recoverable funds are a small fraction of the losses in both cases.

Chicago court indicts Kishu Inu creator over $9 million ‘rug pull’ 

The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois disclosed on October 7 that the 28-year-old Sisemore, a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas, faces three counts of wire fraud. Sisemore, who also goes by “Kishu man” and “Kimbo” online, faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. 

The court has not set an arraignment date as of this report.

Sisemore’s problems go back to the April 2021 launch of Kishu Inu on Ethereum. Prosecutors allege that the creator did not fully disclose supply ownership to the roughly 283,000 token holders, which peaked at a market capitalization of over $1.6 billion.

According to the Justice Department’s indictment, Sisemore and others sold the Kishu Inu tokens they secretly held on the open market despite telling investors that the project’s team held no allocation.

Prosecutors also flagged a possible backdoor that may have allowed the creators to mint extra tokens. 

While they publicly claimed to hold just 1.7%, wallets linked to Sisemore and a second founder, identified as Individual A, reportedly held about 6% of the Kishu Inu supply each ahead of any public sales. 

DOJ prosecutors cited a trade in which roughly 4.74 trillion Kishu Inu tokens were dumped for 39,308 USDT on October 27, 2021.

The FBI’s Chicago Field Office is asking investors in the Kishu Inu trade to come forward as it attempts to tally the losses from the fraud.

Singapore freezes Tokenize Xchange’s founders’ assets

The Singapore High Court has also seized nearly S$53 million in assets tied to Hong Qi Yu, the former CEO of AmazingTech, the company that ran the collapsed Tokenize Xchange. The Mareva injunction, which also names Hong Qi Yu’s ex-wife, Erin Koo Kee Hoon, is a court order that restricts defendants in cases from moving or selling tagged assets. 

Koo had the chief operating officer position at AmazingTech, a role she described as nominal in her denial of wrongdoing.

The sum matches what 249 former Tokenize customers are claiming in a suit alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and conspiracy. Hong and Koo, both 36, tried and failed to lift the order at a September 28 hearing before Justice Mohamed Faizal. 

The action is the latest turn in a case that opened in November 2025 with 272 claimants seeking S$60.5 million, before 23 of them withdrew. Hong was charged with fraudulent trading on July 31, 2025, and AmazingTech was later wound up by the court. None of the allegations has been proven.

Most of the lost funds are gone

The biggest frustration for victims is that the funds they lost in both cases far outweigh the amount of money within the reach of authorities.

Court-appointed interim judicial managers found that AmazingTech owed Tokenize users roughly $205.34 million but held realizable assets of only about $2 million, less than 1% of what was owed. 

Suresh Divyanathan, the lead lawyer for the claimants, told The Business Times his clients were “incensed” to learn how little remained, with some having “lost their entire life savings.”