The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filed a federal court complaint against New York City-based Unicoin, Inc. and three senior executives for allegedly making false and misleading statements in offerings of “rights certificates” tied to crypto assets called Unicoin tokens and in an offering of Unicoin common stock. The SEC alleges the marketing persuaded more than 5,000 investors and raised no more than USD 110 million while being promoted as a safe, stable, profitable and “registered” crypto investment. The complaint alleges Unicoin claimed the tokens were “asset-backed” by billions of dollars of real estate and equity interests in pre-IPO companies even though its assets were worth only a small fraction of that amount, and that it claimed more than USD 3 billion of rights certificates had been sold despite raising no more than USD 110 million. It also alleges Unicoin represented the rights certificates and tokens as “SEC-registered” or “U.S. registered” when they were not, and that Unicoin and CEO Alex Konanykhin engaged in unregistered offers and sales of rights certificates, including through Konanykhin’s alleged sale of over 37.9 million of his rights certificates to offer better pricing and reach investors the company had prohibited from participating to preserve an exemption. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, civil penalties, and officer-and-director bars for the executives. The complaint also charges Unicoin’s general counsel, Richard Devlin, with negligently making similar misstatements in private placement memoranda used to offer and sell rights certificates and common stock; without admitting or denying the allegations, he consented to a final judgment providing permanent injunctive relief and a USD 37,500 civil penalty.

Original source View in tracker