The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged crypto platform Unicoin and three top executives on Tuesday with fraud. The SEC claimed that they made false and misleading statements about their tokens and raised over $100 million from investors. Unicoin Accused of Violating Securities Laws in Raising Over $100 Million In a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York on May 20, the SEC accused Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin, former board chair Maria Moschini, senior vice president and general counsel Richard Devlin and former chief investment officer Alejandro Dominguez of misleading over 5,000 investors about so-called “rights certificates” that conveyed rights to receive Unicoin tokens and stock. “We allege that Unicoin and its executives exploited thousands of investors with fictitious promises that its tokens, when issued, would be backed by real-world assets including an international portfolio of valuable real estate holdings,” Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement . “But as we allege, the real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed.” The SEC argued that Unicoin never actually owned the real estate properties it told investors it had purchased, and that those properties’ values were greatly exaggerated. Unicoin allegedly placed ads in airports, taxis, office building elevator screens, and on television programs to lure investors, touting the offerings as the “next generation” secure investments. The complaint further alleges that Unicoin falsely claimed its tokens were registered with the SEC and that it had made $3 billion in sales by June 2024, when it sold just over $110 million in its rights certificates. According to court documents, the SEC is seeking injunctive relief, disgorgement, and civil penalties against all named defendants, as well as officer-and-director prohibitions for the three senior executives. Devlin agreed to pay a $37,500 civil penalty, without admitting or denying the charges. The lawsuit comes as the SEC, under the new Trump-Vance administration, has dismissed several high-profile crypto enforcement cases, including recent cases against Coinbase , Ripple , Robinhood , and Consensys. These SEC actions are part of a radical change from the hostile regulatory stance adopted by the previous Biden regime.
