The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Green United, a manufacturer of crypto mining devices, with violating federal laws and defrauding $18 million.
According to the lawsuit filed by the regulator, the company's founder, Wright Thurston, and lead developer, Christopher Krohn, sold Antminer S9 devices under the guise of "Green Boxes," specialized equipment for mining green "GREEN" tokens, which were in fact counterfeit.
The defendants promised investors a monthly return of 40-50%. The miners themselves were supposed to be installed in Green United's data center.
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to get daily short digests about events that shape the crypto world
According to the SEC, Thurston had been creating fake tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and distributing them to investors' wallets.
The asset itself never increased in price, while the coins could not be sold until the fall of 2020. The current price of the token is $0.004.
According to the regulator, the organizers of the scheme tricked investors into mining Bitcoins from purchased miners. At the same time, the depositors themselves did not receive any income.