SEC Charges Siblings In Latest $124 Million Crypto Scam: Report

The SEC charges siblings John and Jonatina Barksdale who managed to scam thousands of investors via their Ormeus Coin and netted $124 million with their scam, so let’s read more in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

The siblings were charged by the US officials with a crypto scam and were accused of defrauding investors out of $124 million using a bogus cryptocurrency. The US SEC charges siblings Barksdale stating that both of them scammed investors out of millions of dollars via unregistered securities offerings and a fake coin.

The couple is charged with running Ormeus Global which is a multi-level marketing program from June 2017 to 2018 and offered subscription packages that included Ormeus. Melissa Hodgman who is an associated director in the SEC Division of Enforcement said:

We claim that the Barksdales behaved as modern-day snake-oil salesmen, misrepresenting retail investors through social media, promotional websites, and in-person roadshows.”

According to the documents filed in the federal court in Manhattan, the DOJ alleged that John misled about the profitability of the Ormeus coin and the missing assets and stated that the coin was backed by a $250 million mining operation which earned more than $5 million in monthly revenue. Mining was suspended in 2019 but the couple already developed some fake wallets in order to conceal the fact that Ormeus was not mined. The company also deceived investors by claiming the vault wallet that was worth more than $190 million in November last year.

The display was created using a second website whcih displayed the value of the wallet but according to the SEC, the project’s actual wallets were worth less than $500,000. Hodgman added:

“We will continue to vigorously pursue individuals who sell securities in schemes to dupe the investing public, no matter what label the promoters attach to their products.”

The DOJ said that John has been detained and faces up to 65 years in prison on securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy charges. Both the defendants are US nationals. The SEC was quite skeptical of widespread crypto sector promotional practices and whether they represent fraud and last week, the reports surfaced that the SEC locked down the crosshairs on NFTS used for fundraising reasons just like ordinary stocks. In the meantime, the price of BTC was trading at $42,324.