Niclas De Angelis

Niclas De Angelis Exposed: 

 

The Public Face of Convicted Felon Michael Shvartsman
 

Public Warning
 

This page exists to inform the public about Niclas De Angelis (known as “Nic”), a individual who operates as the front-man and proxy for Michael Shvartsman — a man convicted of securities fraud and currently serving a federal prison sentence for insider trading.

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Who is Niclas De Angelis, really?

 

Niclas De Angelis markets himself as an independent fintech entrepreneur and payments expert serving the cannabis industry. In reality, he functions as Michael Shvartsman’s trusted stand-in and operational proxy while Shvartsman is incarcerated.

Michael Shvartsman was sentenced in October 2024 to more than two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to securities fraud. He made tens of millions in illegal profits from insider trading tied to the SPAC merger that took Trump Media & Technology Group public (detailed in federal indictments and widely reported by OCCRP, Miami Herald, and others).

While Shvartsman sits in prison, Niclas De Angelis is the visible operator running day-to-day activities for Shvartsman-linked companies in the “cashless ATM” and cannabis-payment space.

 

Companies Currently or Previously Tied to the Shvartsman–De Angelis Network

    •    Transact First – a cashless payment processor that disguises cannabis purchases as ATM withdrawals.
   •    Salt Money – another fintech brand offering compliance and payment tools to dispensaries.
   •    Alleaves / BioTrack – the seed-to-sale tracking company that holds multi-year, multimillion-dollar traceability contracts with Florida, New York, Hawaii, New Mexico, Arkansas, Delaware, and others. Alleaves acquired BioTrack in 2023 using entities ultimately controlled by Shvartsman and his associates.

Publicly available lawsuits (federal court dockets in New York and Oklahoma) and corporate filings in Delaware and Florida show that Shvartsman, his various proxies and associated as well as related entities used layered shell companies (including BT Assets Group) to acquire and control these businesses while concealing cannabis exposure from banks.

Ongoing Discrepancies and “Administrative Errors”

Alleaves continues to insist that neither Shvartsman nor his associates have any current involvement. Yet as recently as 2024, Florida and Delaware corporate registries still point to unexplained gaps and corrections appear repeatedly in filings connected to these entities.

Niclas De Angelis’s Documented False Claims

Niclas De Angelis routinely inflates his credentials to gain trust:
   •    Claims to hold a PhD in Philosophy – no record of any such degree exists in academic databases or university registries.
   •    Claims to have served in the U.S. Army – no military service record can be found in DoD or public veteran databases. These fabricated credentials are used to impress clients and partners.

 

Why This Matters

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The U.S. cannabis industry is projected to exceed $43 billion in 2024, but because marijuana remains federally illegal, legitimate banks avoid it. This vacuum has attracted opaque payment schemes that hide transactions from regulators and financial institutions — exactly the model Shvartsman and his proxies have exploited.

Doing business with Niclas De Angelis means dealing directly with the continuation of Michael Shvartsman’s network — a network already convicted of fraud, facing ongoing civil lawsuits, and built on deliberate deception of banks and regulators.

Recommendation

    •    Avoid any business relationship with Niclas De Angelis, Transact First, Salt Money, or any entity he currently represents.
   •    If you have already engaged with him or these companies, preserve all records and consider reporting to the SEC, FINRA, your state Attorney General, or the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Niclas De Angelis is not an independent entrepreneur.
He is the public face keeping a convicted felon’s operation running from behind prison walls.

Proceed at your own extreme risk!