The commission's headquarters.
Andrew Kelly.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it has charged a man for defrauding at least $7 million from hundreds of investors via two fraudulent offerings for digital asset securities.
Ivars Auzins is accused of being behind the unregistered offer and sale of digital asset securities in an initial coin offering as well as a purported digital asset cloud mining program.
Auzins, a citizen of Latvia, is accused of carrying out fraud against US and foreign investors. He misappropriated almost all of the investor funds.
The SEC's cyber unit said that Auzins was engaged in a brazen scheme to defraud retail investors under the guise of profitable digital asset opportunities. We will continue to look for those who try to victimize investors in the digital asset space.
The market for cryptocurrencies has grown this year to a valuation of over $1 trillion.
The SEC said Auzins' scheme was part of an initial coin offering of Denaro. He said Denaro allowed users to store their digital assets in a secure digital wallet and then spend them "like any other debit card" which could be provided by a credit card issuer.
Auzins allegedly offered the unregistered securities of a cloud mining program called Innovamine from April through July of 2019. The SEC said he lied about investors being able to contribute digital assets to Innovamine and that the company would perform mining activities and give investors a daily "automaticPayout" in whichever coin they mine.
The complaint was filed in the Eastern District of New York.
Business Insider has an original article.
