TLDR
- SEC charged Unicoin and three executives for misleading over 5,000 investors in a $110 million crypto offering
- Company allegedly made false claims about asset backing, registration status, and total funds raised
- CEO Alex Konanykhin vows to fight charges, calling it persecution by “rogue officials”
- SEC alleges Unicoin advertised 9,000,000% potential returns and falsely claimed to own $1.4 billion in real estate
- Case comes as SEC under Trump administration has retreated from other high-profile crypto enforcement actions
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against New York-based cryptocurrency company Unicoin and three of its top executives for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $110 million through false claims about their crypto offerings.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, names CEO Alex Konanykhin, board member Silvina Moschini, and former Chief Investment Officer Alex Dominguez as defendants. The SEC also charged the company’s general counsel, Richard Devlin, who has agreed to pay a $37,500 penalty without admitting wrongdoing.
According to the complaint, Unicoin misled more than 5,000 investors by selling “rights certificates” tied to tokens that the company claimed would be backed by real-world assets. The SEC alleges that Unicoin falsely stated it had raised $3 billion when the actual amount was just over $110 million.
Real Estate Misrepresentations
At the heart of the case are claims about Unicoin’s real estate holdings. The SEC alleges that between September 2023 and January 2024, the company announced acquisitions of properties in Argentina, Thailand, Antigua, and the Bahamas with purported appraised values of more than $1.4 billion.
In reality, the SEC claims most of these transactions never closed, and the combined value of the four properties was no more than $300 million. This represents a fraction of what the company claimed to investors.
“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,” said Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
The agency also accuses Konanykhin of personally selling nearly 38 million certificates to investors who were otherwise barred from participating.
Aggressive Marketing Campaign
The SEC complaint highlights Unicoin’s marketing efforts, which allegedly included promises of outsized returns of up to 9,000,000%. The company ran advertisements on taxi cabs, ferries, office building elevator screens, digital billboards, television programs, news websites, and public Wi-Fi kiosks.
These ads presented the tokens as “next generation” secure investments and drew comparisons to Bitcoin’s growth, telling investors to “take advantage of the early days of Unicoin and get them today.” The company emphasized that “Bitcoin experienced a tremendous rise in value, transforming early adopters into millionaires, and even billionaires.”
Social media posts and website content consistently overstated the company’s sales figures and the security of the investment, according to the SEC.
CEO Vows to Fight Charges
Speaking to media outlets in April, Konanykhin pledged to contest the charges in court. “I fully intend to win this case in the courtroom,” he said. “It’s grotesque that the most compliant crypto company in the U.S. remains the only one being persecuted by the SEC.”
Konanykhin has claimed the lawsuit doesn’t represent the views of the current SEC leadership. “This is being driven by rogue officials left over from the Gensler administration who are trying to cover themselves by bullying us into a false admission of guilt,” he stated.
The Unicoin CEO revealed he had rejected the SEC’s attempt to settle the charges last month, declining what he described as an “ultimatum” to attend a settlement negotiation meeting by April 18.
The case comes as the SEC under the Trump administration has stepped back from several high-profile crypto enforcement actions, including cases against major players like Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, and Consensys.
The SEC is seeking injunctive relief, disgorgement, and civil penalties against all named defendants, as well as officer-and-director bans for the three senior executives. Konanykhin has been contacted for comment on the charges but has not yet responded.
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