In the autopsy, the biggest red flag will probably be the lack of appropriate internal controls. One should not be able to move that kind of money without vetting by staff with appropriate background and independence, but no ownership interest. Based on the reported en masse resignation of the bulk of legal and compliance staff, it seems that it was technically possible to transfer billions in customer assets to the CEO’s company without legal/compliance involvement.
I don’t think a highly branched company structure is a red flag: my understanding is that to operate a financial business legally across many jurisdictions you generally need to have subsidiaries in each jurisdiction. Ex: https://wise.com/help/articles/2974131/what-are-the-wise-group-entities
In the autopsy, the biggest red flag will probably be the lack of appropriate internal controls. One should not be able to move that kind of money without vetting by staff with appropriate background and independence, but no ownership interest. Based on the reported en masse resignation of the bulk of legal and compliance staff, it seems that it was technically possible to transfer billions in customer assets to the CEO’s company without legal/compliance involvement.