Ontario judge orders up to $20 million of protesters' cash, cryptocurrency frozen

As police worked to arrest organizers of the convoy blockading Ottawa in downtown streets, a different kind of enforcement was playing out in court, where a group of citizens secured an order freezing millions in assets belonging to convoy fundraisers and organizers.

Convoy leaders are now restricted from moving as much as $20 million in assets tied to the occupation, from bank accounts to fundraisers to cryptocurrency assets, in what’s known as a mareva order that is in effect worldwide, according to the order issued by Justice Calum MacLeod.

“It’s the first time in Canadian legal history that bitcoin and cryptocurrency has been subject to a freezing order,” said the lawyer for the class action, Paul Champ.

Champ made the application as part of the same class action lawsuit that resulted in an injunction against loud horns that had become a hallmark of the convoy, which has been a fixture in downtown Ottawa for more than two weeks.

The application was made to secure assets for the court should the larger application — compensation for disruptions the convoy has caused — be successful. That would mean some of the millions raised for the convoy could be diverted to recompense Ottawa residents.