Canadian crypto fugitive is seeking U.S. presidential pardon on criminal indictment, U.S. lobbying firm says

Matthew Pierce · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 18, 2026 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

A Washington, D.C., lobbying firm says it is seeking a presidential pardon for Canadian crypto fugitive Andean Medjedovic, documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice show.

Medjedovic is wanted in the United States for allegedly exploiting two cryptocurrency trading platforms for $65 million US. The Netherlands has charged the 23-year-old Hamilton native with similar crimes. In Ontario, a civil suit was launched by one of his alleged victims in 2021.

In the DOJ documents, the lobbying firm, JM Burkman & Associates, says it is advocating for Medjedovic regarding the U.S. case against him. It intends to engage government officials, it says, "for the purpose of achieving a presidential pardon."

The lobbying filings, made under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Feb. 20, were first reported by Juno News late last month. 

The fifth estate tried to reach Medjedovic for comment, but received no response.

Speaking with the fifth estate, Jacob Wohl, a partner at JM Burkman, said Medjedovic is a "very brilliant young man" and "admirable in a lot of ways."

Jacob Wohl is a partner at JM Burkman & Associates. (www.burkmanassociates.com)

In its indictment, the DOJ says the Canadian borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, which he then used to engage in "deceptive trading." It alleges his activity, which it calls an "exploit," caused two computerized cryptocurrency platforms to "falsely calculate key variables," allowing Medjedovic to withdraw millions in investor funds.

The filed documents, and Wohl, reject that this was an exploit. 

"People went in and traded and the price action reflected that," Wohl said. "That's a very different thing from an exploit." 

Medjedovic "identified an ingenious way to operate within the boundaries set by" the crypto platforms "and executed standard permissible trades for profit," JM Burkman says in the filings. 

This closely mirrors the "code is law" argument, which Medjedovic has previously alluded to online but never outright espoused. 

Essentially, it argues that the computer code of a program defines its rules and any activity that operates within that set of rules is permissible. Laws from the real world are not relevant. That the code for a cryptocurrency trading platform allowed an incredibly sophisticated set of transactions to drain all the money it held is a feature of that platform, and no culpability rests with the user. 

Medjedovic was held in this prison in Belgrade, Serbia, for more than 100 days in 2024. (BIRN)

Toronto lawyer Benjamin Bathgate, who represents an alleged victim of Medjedovic in a civil suit in Ontario, calls the activity market manipulation. 

Responding to questions from the fifth estate, Bathgate said that "if the crypto trading market operated this way, it would be the Wild West, with no investor being safe from being the next target."

While JM Burkman equates Medjedovic's trading activity to high-frequency stock trading, Bathgate said, the Canadian used very different language prior to carrying out his trades.

WATCH | Looking for a crypto fugitive:

According to the U.S. indictment, Medjedovic sent a message two months prior to one of the alleged exploits stating he had been working on a breakthrough "so I can steal crypto, lol." He also allegedly called some of the planned transaction results "fake" and a "glitch."

JM Burkman makes a number of other arguments, including that criminal court is not the proper venue for deciding these issues. 

"It's a shame that the charges were ever brought. It should be litigated in civil court," Wohl said.

These grainy images were included in a European arrest warrant for Medjedovic and show a passport in the name of Luka Krajovic he allegedly used and security camera footage of him at a hotel. (District Public Prosecutor’s Office, The Hague)

In the ongoing civil case in Ontario, the judge issued a warrant for Medjedovic's arrest after he failed to participate in the proceedings, a point not lost on Bathgate.

"He seems to prefer making his arguments from the shadows, where there is no risk should his arguments fail," Bathgate said.  

$300K retainer paid, filings say

The filings state Medjedovic has paid JM Burkman a $300,000 US retainer. They also note payment could be made via wire transfer or cryptocurrency. 

"We have an understanding with Andy that none of the money that he's paying to us is ill-gotten," Wohl said. "He has other businesses, other lines of income and other things going on."

Wohl has pleaded guilty to telecommunications fraud in Ohio, as well as to selling false securities and using a scheme or artifice to defraud in California. In 2025, he pleaded no contest to multiple felony charges related to election law in Michigan, according to the state's attorney general. 

The National Futures Association, a U.S. self-regulatory body for derivative financial products, banned Wohl from the industry in 2017.

Wohl attributed those issues to "lawfare" that goes on between Republican and Democratic operatives in the United States.

"There's a reason we're not in jail, because we didn't actually commit any crimes, and they knew that," he said.

According to the filings, JM Burkman has started reaching out to members of the U.S. Congress to forward Medjedovic's interests. 

"The first step is to make people aware and perhaps have a situation in which the Justice Department simply drops the charges," Wohl said. Barring that, their hope is for a pardon. 

"At the end of the day there's only one person that can grant the pardon and there's one person that makes those decisions. That's the president."