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Mortajine takes over wider controls
Crypto.com has appointed Mohammed Mortajine to lead compliance as the company grows beyond crypto trading. His remit covers a group offering payment services, derivatives and prediction markets through businesses subject to different rules.
Mortajine has held senior compliance posts at Western Union, ACI Worldwide and Paysafe. Crypto.com said he has overseen programmes in more than 200 countries and territories and assembled teams working across jurisdictions.
He succeeds Alvarez, who joined Crypto.com as Chief Compliance Officer in 2020. Bloomberg reported in August that Alvarez was set to join Binance as deputy to its Chief Compliance Officer, Noah Perlman. Crypto.com has not explained how it covered the role in the period before Mortajine's appointment.
Payment rules meet event markets
In Europe, the payments experience is relevant to Crypto.com's stablecoin services, some of which fall under both crypto and payment-services requirements. Crypto.com's entity in Malta is regulated under MiCA and secured MiCA authorisation the previous year. In February 2026, it obtained a Limited Financial Institutions licence, allowing it to continue payment services involving electronic money tokens.
Separately, the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sought documents from Crypto.com in September as part of an inquiry into possible insider trading on event-contract platforms. The request does not establish that Crypto.com breached rules. The committee's request was reported by Finance Magnates.
Among the issues raised was whether customer checks differ between Crypto.com Derivatives North America and the group's international exchange. The committee also asked how the platforms detect suspicious trading, block users circumventing geographic restrictions and handle records of suspicious activity referred to US authorities.
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For risk and operations teams, the appointment leaves practical questions about ownership of controls across the group's businesses. Operators should establish who is responsible for customer verification, suspicious-trade escalation and geographic restrictions at each entity, and how those processes work across platforms.
The company has not detailed the handover from Alvarez or how the relevant controls are coordinated. Teams can seek clarity on whether procedures differ between the US derivatives business and international exchange, and how records supporting referrals to US authorities are maintained and accessed.
Operators should also ask how evidence of suspicious activity is retained and passed between the relevant businesses, and which teams own the process when a customer or trade spans more than one platform. The source does not describe those workflows, so their scope and escalation paths remain to be confirmed.
