The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed an action against five persons, who allegedly promoted an unregistered digital asset securities offering BitConnect. The watchdog says the cryptocurrency-focused scheme raised over $2 billion from retail investors.
The SEC claims that BitConnect used a "network of promoters," including several residents of the US: Trevon Brown (also known as Trevon James), Craig Grant, Ryan Maasen, and Michael Noble (known as Michael Crypto). Particularly, the SEC alleges the promoters in offering and selling "securities" without registering the offering with the watchdog.
"The promoters advertised the merits of investing in BitConnect's lending program to prospective investors, including by creating 'testimonial' style videos and publishing them on YouTube, sometimes multiple times a day," the SEC says.
The SEC seeks injunctive relief, disgorgement plus interest, and civil penalties from the promoters. In October 2018, Indian immigration service detained at the airport in Delhi Divyesh Darji, who presumably headed the promotion of BitConnect's Ponzi scheme in India, and once again traveled to this country from Dubai.
Darji was accused of having conducted seminars and participated in other events where he tried to involve new participants in the investment scheme, promising them incomes at the level of 1% per day from the contribution to the project's cryptocurrency.
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