SEC | FinTelegram News

Category: SEC

February 13, 2022

U.S. crypto lender BlockFi to pay $100M to settle the regulatory case!

Bloomberg reported that the crypto lender BlockFi agreed to pay $100 million to settle allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and state regulators that it illegally offered a product that pays customers high-interest rates to lend out their cryptos. The company has been under investigation since at least Nov 2021 over the lending product, which offers yields as high as 9.5%.

February 11, 2022

U.S. SEC proposed amendments to strengthen its whistleblower program

The U.S. SEC proposed two amendments to its whistleblower program. Specifically, the proposed amendment would allow the Commission to pay whistleblower awards for certain actions brought by other entities, including designated federal agencies, in cases where those awards might otherwise be paid under the other entity's whistleblower program. The second affirms the Commission's authority to consider the dollar amount of a potential award for the limited purpose of increasing an award but not to lower an award.

October 28, 2021

R4I – Fraudulent investment schemes of Ronald Shane Flynn!

California's U.S. Attorney's Office charged California resident Ronald Shane Flynn a/k/a Ronnie Shane, 57, with investment fraud. He allegedly defrauded more than 100 investors out of $14M in alleged pre-IPO investment opportunities and worked with boiler rooms in the Philippines. The U.S. regulator SEC had charged Shane, his Vuuzle Media Corp., and his co-conspirator Richard Marchitto with investment fraud in January 2021.

October 17, 2021

Whistleblower Business – U.S. awards $40 million to two whistleblowers!

The U.S. SEC announced awards of approximately $40 million to two whistleblowers whose information and assistance contributed to the success of an SEC enforcement action. The first whistleblower, whose information caused the opening of the investigation and exposed difficult-to-detect violations, will receive an award of approximately $32 million. The second whistleblower will receive approximately $8 million for submitting important new information even though he waited several years to report to the Commission.

September 16, 2021

Whistleblower business – SEC awarded more than $1 billion!

Whistleblowing is becoming a big business! The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced awards of approximately $110 million and $4 million to two whistleblowers whose information and assistance led to successful SEC and related actions. Including these awards, the SEC's whistleblower program has paid more than $1 billion in awards to 207 whistleblowers, including over $500 million in the fiscal year 2021 alone. The $110 million award stands as the second-highest award in the program's history.

June 6, 2021

US SEC settles fraud complaint against binary options fraudsters Kai Petersen, Gil Beserglik et al

54-year-old German Kai Petersen a/k/a Kai Haupt and his Israeli partners Gil Beserglik and his son Raz Beserglik have been major players in the binary options and forex fraud industry between 2014 and 2020. Their scam brands and boiler rooms have defrauded tens of thousands of investors out of as much as $100 million the SEC has alleged in a fraud lawsuit. The US regulator claims that Bloombex Options, Morton Finance, and Starling Capital ripped off $100 million. And these were only three of many other scams. On May 25, 2021, the SEC announced a cheap settlement in this case.

April 20, 2021

Chasing Scam Facilitators – The U.S. v. SpotOption, Yukom, GreyMountain Management, et al

Broker scams are like icebergs. You can see only the tip sticking out of the water, i.e., domain, website, offshore entities, and nominees a/k/a monkeys. Underwater or in the darkness of the Internet, the real perpetrators and facilitators are hiding. These scam-facilitators are white label providers, the boiler room operators, marketing and affiliate systems, and the payment processors. In the case of the Yukom scam, these were the boiler rooms in Israel and Mauritius, mostly Israeli payment processors, and the white-label operator SpotOption, which provided the software and trading infrastructure.

April 19, 2021

Breaking News – SEC files complaint against white-label broker hub SpotOption and its owners

The Israeli broker white-label operator SpotOption is related to the Yukom Case. Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Spot Tech House Ltd (d/b/a SpotOption) and two of its former top executives, Malhaz Pinhas Patarkazishvili (a/k/a Pini Peter) and Ran Amiran, with deceiving U.S. investors out of more than $100 million through fraudulent and unregistered online sales of risky securities known as binary options.

February 28, 2021

Whistleblower business – SEC awards more than $4.7M in four cases

Whistleblowing has long since become a billion-dollar business in the United States, involving whistleblowers, lawyers, and private investigators. It is a lucrative business. Over the last seven days, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced awards totaling more than $4.7M. The SEC has awarded approximately $752 million to 138 individuals since issuing its first award in 2012.

February 17, 2021

Let’s go crypto! Canadian regulator approved first two BTC ETFs in North America

Cryptocurrencies are the future, right? At least that's what many experts and visionaries like Elon Musk claim. Apparently, North American regulators are now also giving in to the crypto trend, finally approving the first crypto ETFs and thus facilitating entry of more institutional investors into crypto. While the U.S. SEC has not yet approved a crypto ETF the Canadian Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has approved two Bitcoin ETFs within just a couple of days.

January 2, 2021

SEC Complaint against Ripple may cause the first financial collapse in crypto universe

The last days of 2020 saw the U.S. SEC complaint against Ripple Labs Inc. alleging that its XRP is actually a security. A regulatory attack on the entire crypto scene, some analysts argue. Once the 3rd-largest crypto, XRP's market cap plummeted from more than $26 billion to less than $10 billion. Some crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, OKCoin, or Crypto.com have suspended trading in XRP. Is it the end of days for XRP and the crypto bull-run?

December 28, 2020

U.S. SEC obtained Emergency Asset Freeze against $120 Mio crypto scheme Virgil Capital

The U.S. SEC filed an emergency action and obtained an order imposing an asset freeze and other emergency relief against Virgil Capital LLC (www.virgilcap.com) and its affiliated companies in connection with an alleged securities fraud relating to Virgil Capital's cryptocurrency trading fund, Virgil Sigma Fund LP. The Commission's action alleges that the fraud was directed by Stefan Qin, an Australian citizen and part-time resident of New York, who owns and controls the crypto scheme.