Top Unicoin Executives Accused of Defrauding Investors in SEC Complaint

The US Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) has filed expenses in opposition to New York-based crypto alternate Unicoin, together with a number of prime executives, alleging a scheme to defraud traders by way of deceptive claims tied to the sale of rights certificates and firm inventory.

The SEC has accused Unicoin of falsely claiming to have raised over $3 billion by way of its rights certificates choices. In actuality, the company claimed the corporate raised not more than $110 million from traders.

Misleading Crypto Funding Marketing campaign

In accordance with a complaint filed within the Southern District of New York, the SEC accused CEO and Chairman Alex Konanykhin, former president and board chairwoman Silvina Moschini, former Chief Funding Officer Alex Dominguez, and normal counsel Richard Devlin of orchestrating or facilitating misleading promotional campaigns that resulted in over 5,000 people buying rights certificates marketed as entry to “asset-backed” Unicoin tokens.

Promotional supplies, broadly circulated by way of high-profile promoting in airports, taxis, tv, and social media, portrayed these rights certificates as safe and profitable investments linked to crypto belongings allegedly backed by billions of {dollars} in actual property and fairness holdings in non-public firms.

Nevertheless, the SEC argued that Unicoin’s precise holdings represented solely a small fraction of these claims.

In an official assertion, Mark Cave, Affiliate Director within the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, stated,

“We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited 1000’s of traders with fictitious guarantees that its tokens, when issued, can be backed by real-world belongings together with a global portfolio of worthwhile actual property holdings.”

False Claims of Regulatory Compliance

Unicoin and its executives additionally reportedly misled traders by claiming the choices have been registered with the SEC or have been in any other case compliant with US laws, which they weren’t.

The securities company additional alleges that Konanykhin personally offered practically 38 million rights certificates, together with to traders that Unicoin had initially excluded to keep up a registration exemption, which violated securities legal guidelines governing unregistered choices. All 4 people are charged with antifraud violations, with Unicoin and Konanykhin additionally going through expenses associated to unregistered securities gross sales.

As such, the SEC is searching for everlasting injunctions, civil penalties, and disgorgement of ill-gotten good points, in addition to prohibiting the three executives from serving as officers or administrators of public firms. Moreover, Devlin, the corporate’s normal counsel, has agreed to settle the fees with out admitting or denying the allegations. His settlement features a everlasting injunction and a $37,500 civil penalty for negligently making deceptive statements in non-public placement paperwork.

Konanykhin wrote in an April 3 Miami Herald opinion piece that the SEC knowledgeable Unicoin in December of deliberate fraud expenses. Nevertheless, he “vehemently refuted” the claims.