2 years ago
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has halted a $62 cardinal planetary cryptocurrency trading and mining strategy and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted its CEO and founder. If convicted of each counts, helium faces a maximum full punishment of 45 years successful prison, the Justice Department.
SEC Halts $62M Global Cryptocurrency Fraud Scheme
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Friday that it has halted a fraudulent crypto mining and trading scheme.
The SEC charged MCC International (aka Mining Capital Coin), its founders (Luiz Carlos Capuci Jr. and Emerson Souza Pires), and 2 entities controlled by them. The charges are “in transportation with the unregistered offerings and fraudulent income of concern plans called mining packages to thousands of investors,” the bureau noted.
The securities watchdog elaborate that since astatine slightest January 2018:
MCC, Capuci, and Pires sold mining packages to 65,535 investors worldwide and promised regular returns of 1 percent, paid weekly, for a play of up to 52 weeks.
The ailment besides alleges that MCC investors were initially promised returns successful bitcoin (BTC). However, the defendants aboriginal “required investors to retreat their investments successful tokens called superior coin (CPTL), which was MCC’s ain token.”
DOJ Charges MCC’s Founder and CEO
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) besides independently announced Friday that Capuci, the laminitis and CEO of MCC, a purported cryptocurrency mining and concern platform, has been indicted successful a $62 cardinal planetary cryptocurrency fraud scheme.
Capuci of Port St. Lucie, Florida, misled investors astir his platform’s cryptocurrency mining and concern program, luring them to put successful MCC’s “mining packages,” the DOJ described. He and his co-conspirators claimed that MCC had an planetary web of cryptocurrency mining machines that could make “substantial profits and guaranteed returns” for investors.
They besides touted MCC’s ain cryptocurrency arsenic a purported decentralized autonomous enactment that was “stabilized by gross from the biggest cryptocurrency mining cognition successful the world,” the DOJ added, noting:
However, Capuci operated a fraudulent concern strategy and did not usage investors’ funds to excavation caller cryptocurrency, arsenic promised, but alternatively diverted the funds to cryptocurrency wallets nether his control.
The indictment further alleges that Capuci touted and fraudulently marketed MCC’s purported “trading bots” arsenic an further concern mechanics to assistance investors nett successful the cryptocurrency market.
The MCC laminitis besides allegedly recruited promoters and affiliates to beforehand MCC successful a pyramid scheme, the DOJ said, adding that helium further concealed the determination and power of the fraud proceeds by laundering the funds done assorted foreign-based cryptocurrency exchanges. The Justice Department added:
Capuci is charged with conspiracy to perpetrate ligament fraud, conspiracy to perpetrate securities fraud, and conspiracy to perpetrate planetary wealth laundering. If convicted of each counts, helium faces a maximum full punishment of 45 years successful prison.
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Kevin Helms
A pupil of Austrian Economics, Kevin recovered Bitcoin successful 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests prevarication successful Bitcoin security, open-source systems, web effects and the intersection betwixt economics and cryptography.
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