The SEC has recently announced its charge of 3 individuals concerning an ICO scam worth around $30 million. The individuals have been accused of covering up Boaz Manor’s status as head of the initial coin offering scheme. Manor has already been convicted of the crime alongside his associate, Edith Pardo, but is now set to be joined by alleged assailants Michael Gietz of Idaho, Cristine Page of Brooklyn, and Ali Asif Hamid of Oakville, Ontario.
The complaint has now been filed before the US District Court of New Jersey. In an official document released by the SEC, the defendants are found to have maintained leadership positions within the ICO fraud, and in doing so attempted to conceal Boaz Manor’s head position within the illegal scheme. The investigation was led by Jordan Baker and Sandeep Satwalekar from the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regional New York Office and Simona Suh, Ann Marie Preissler, and Tracy Sivitz of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit.
On top of the concealment charge, authorities have also accused the three new defendants of being well aware of Manor’s background in criminal activities.
The latest SEC press release stated:
To conceal Manor’s involvement and his history from investors, they used Manor’s chosen alias ‘Shaun MacDonald’ in ICO related-communications and helped create and distribute materially misleading ICO marketing materials, which omitted any reference either to Manor or to the fictional ‘MacDonald’ and instead touted a purported ‘executive team’ of individuals who, in reality, had no senior managerial authority over the business.
That SEC has now formally charged each Gietz, Page and Hamid with the violation of securities registration requirements, as well as with the aiding, violating, and abetting of the violations of antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Although Christine Page has neither accepted nor denied the recent claims made by the SEC, she has now made an agreement with the court to arrange a settlement, which will be subject to the court’s approval. The settlement is likely to include lifelong injunctions against Page, the disgorgement of any digital assets that she may have accumulated due to her misconduct, and finally, a civil penalty charge of around $192,768.
Earlier this week, Florida dentist was charged with securities frauds by SEC. Edgar M. Radjabli and two of his entities were charged on account of his involvement in three individual securities frauds.
The US court recently ordered Emil Botvinnik to pay over $1 million to pay on fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Botvinnik recommended frequent, short-term trades which generated large commissions for him but were almost guaranteed to lose money for his customers.
