The legal and regulatory storm surrounding Lithuanian fintech start-up Bankera has intensified, exposing a tangled web of offshore banking, questionable fund movements, and investor betrayal. Following revelations by the OCCRP and Lithuanian outlet 15min, authorities in both Lithuania and Vanuatu are now moving sharply against the company’s founders, whose financial activities from 2018 have resurfaced with serious consequences. As investigators track millions in diverted cryptocurrency proceeds and courts deliberate the future of a now-embattled Pacific bank, the Bankera saga is rapidly becoming one of the most significant financial scandals linked to Europe’s early crypto boom.

Bankera entered the digital finance scene with bold promises. Founded by Lithuanian businessmen Mantas Mockevičius, Vytautas Karalevičius, and Justas Dobiliauskas, it sought to build a blockchain-based banking ecosystem. In 2018, during one of the peak moments of cryptocurrency fundraising mania, the trio launched an ICO (initial coin offering) using the Bankera token, BNK. Investors eager for the next big crypto success poured money into the project, helping the founders raise over €100 million in just six months – an enormous sum for a Baltic start-up still developing its core technology.

Yet behind the scenes, as the new investigation reveals, much of that cash was not being directed toward the platform’s growth. Instead, significant portions were vanishing offshore.

Central to Bankera’s unraveling is the trio’s 2018 acquisition of Pacific Private Bank (PPB) in the small island nation of Vanuatu. The purchase occurred shortly before the close of Bankera’s record-breaking ICO. At first glance, the acquisition appeared strategic: owning a private international bank might allow Bankera to service cross-border clients and manage crypto funds with fewer restrictions.

But OCCRP and 15min uncovered a far more suspicious pattern.

According to the reporting, Bankera’s founders funneled over €45 million of the ICO proceeds into PPB’s accounts. Once the funds landed in Vanuatu, millions allegedly flowed into luxury real estate, high-end personal expenditures, and loans benefiting Mockevičius, Karalevičius, and Dobiliauskas directly. Rather than being used to build an innovative fintech platform, investor money was quietly nourishing a closed circle of insiders.

The Reserve Bank of Vanuatu took notice.

In November 2025, the central bank revoked PPB’s international banking license – a rare move that immediately raised questions about the offshore bank’s operations and internal controls. Such a revocation usually signifies profound concerns about regulatory compliance, solvency, governance, or the integrity of banking activities.

Yet PPB has not been completely shut down. This week, the bank secured a temporary stay of the revocation, allowing it to operate while its appeal is heard in court. The legal process could take weeks or months, but the move shows PPB is resisting the regulator’s decision, even as its founders remain silent.

Neither PPB nor the Vanuatu central bank responded to inquiries from OCCRP, hinting at the sensitivity surrounding the case.

While Vanuatu regulators grapple with PPB’s fate, Lithuanian authorities have launched their own offensive.

During the past week, the Financial Crime Investigation Service (FNTT) executed more than 30 raids targeting businesses and premises connected to Bankera and its founders. The raids were part of an expanding pre-trial investigation into potential embezzlement of property, specifically regarding the 2018 ICO fundraising.

FNTT officers seized a wide range of materials: documents, computers, mobile phones, digital storage devices, financial records, and any other assets that could shed light on the destination of the €100 million raised from investors. While no charges have yet been filed, the breadth of the raids signals that investigators believe the founders may have used investor money for unauthorized purposes.

The founders themselves – Mockevičius, Karalevičius, and Dobiliauskas – have declined to comment. Their silence, combined with regulatory action in Vanuatu, has only fueled speculation that authorities in both jurisdictions are closing in.

While the founders prospered from personal loans and property investments, Bankera’s investors suffered a very different fate.

As interest in the Bankera token faded and the project failed to deliver its promised products or widespread adoption, the value of BNK plummeted. Today, the cryptocurrency is nearly worthless, leaving thousands of investors who believed in the project with staggering losses. Many now say they were misled by grand promises of a decentralized financial platform that never materialized.

The ICO boom of 2017–2018 was notorious for its mix of legitimate experimentation and opportunistic exploitation. Bankera increasingly appears to fall into the latter category – a project that capitalized on hype while obscuring where investor money was truly going.

Several key developments are now on the horizon:

• Lithuanian prosecutorsmay soon decide whether to file criminal charges related to embezzlement, fraud, or money laundering.
• Vanuatu’s courtswill determine whether PPB regains its banking license or faces a permanent shutdown.
• International cooperationmay emerge if investigators trace funds across multiple jurisdictions.
• Investorscould initiate civil suits seeking compensation for their losses.

Given the sums involved, the cross-border nature of the money flows, and the troubling findings reported so far, the Bankera case may ultimately become one of Europe’s most striking examples of crypto-era financial misconduct.

For now, the founders remain quiet, their offshore bank is in legal limbo, and the fintech empire they once promoted as a “banking revolution” looks more like a cautionary tale of greed, secrecy, and regulatory failure.

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Abul Quashem Joarder, a contributor to Blitz is geopolitical and military expert.